


Of the Same Scrap and Barley

by Kefalion



Series: All About Harry [19]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Crossover, Dimension Travel, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-04 14:04:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5336780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kefalion/pseuds/Kefalion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione read in a book that each witch and wizard has a counterpart in a parallel dimension. In the same book she has also learned that it is possible to reach over and receive the memories of a counterpart. The trio tries to do this. Of course, nothing can ever go the way it should and their failed efforts will shake two worlds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue or Like a Bolt from the Blue

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to write 50 000 words this November. I failed, yet this story was born. As of this moment when I post, another four chapter of about the same length as the first one (the prologue is not included in the count) are more or less ready to be posted. I will post once a week, on Wednsdays, until I run out. Hopefully I'll be able to write more so that the unbroken chain of weekly updates lasts longer than to chapter five.
> 
> I would like to thank my betas; KatarinaZ, AnniKay, Hapgirrl00 and Paperclippe for their editing, their suggestion and their support. Thank you, you've been great and I just know that you'll continue to be so!
> 
> Warnings: Spoilers for all Harry Potter books and films as well as for all films and TV-shows that make up the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Swearing and violence occurs. There are AU elements, how else could I write a crossover?
> 
> (If there is something else you'd like to make sure you're warned against, drop me a line and ask if the story contains whatever you can't stand and I will let you know, or you could read and find out.)

"Thor!" Jane cried out as the man unexpectedly crumpled to the base of the flying ship. He slumped down like a puppet that had gotten its strings cut, limp and lifeless. She crawled out from under the blanket where she'd been resting and kneeled by his side, trying to not think about her own dizziness. Blinking, Jane fought off the weakness that was settling in her body as it was overwhelmed by the Aether and concentrated on Thor. She touched his face, patting it gently; his muscles were slack.

"What did you do?" she asked Loki sharply, turning to glare at him.

The Trickster stood at the back of the ship, ready to steer with the rudder. She hadn't seen him do anything, but she suspected him. Of course she did. She only knew a little about all he'd done to earn his stay in prison, but it was more than enough for a negative opinion to have formed. Slapping him in the face in vengeance for New York had been satisfactory, even as it had left an ache in her hand. It was the same as when she'd slapped Thor upon meeting him for the first time in about two years. She hadn't let her mortality and their stone-like bodies stop her from showing her displeasure then. She wasn't about to let it stop her now either.

"I did nothing," he replied and wriggled his fingers to show off the handcuffs, as if they would acquit him. She wasn't fooled. If he wanted to cause trouble he could do so; hands bound or not. Yet as she studied him Jane thought she might be able to see some sliver of concern for Thor in his expression. It was carefully hidden, yet it shone through his eyes and spoke through the set of his mouth. It made her willing to consider that perhaps he wasn't responsible for his brother's collapse. If Loki wasn't responsible, the question was what had made it happen.

She turned back to the fallen warrior, watching his face from only inches away and calling his name anew without getting any reaction. She could see his chest moving as he drew in breath, could feel the warm air against her own face. At least that was a comfort. Thor wasn't dead. Jane grabbed his shoulders and tried to shake him awake. Shifting him was like trying to move a mountain. He was too heavy for her. She knew that he was heavier than a normal man, but when he was awake (when he was touching her) his strength was always contained, carefully controlled. He knew how to move, how to keep the most of his weight off her. Knowing that he wasn't human and seeing it (being reminded of it) were different things indeed. But that didn't make her worry any less; it didn't affect her feelings for him.

"Thor!" she called yet again. "Wake up! Please! You must wake up!"

As she kept trying to make him wake Loki steered the ship onto the ground, going down in a careful landing. She barely felt an impact as the ship touched down, however she did notice when Loki joined her by Thor's side.

"Don't hurt him!" She didn't trust him. Couldn't. Wouldn't. Would suspect treachery.

His entire being exuded impatience at her plea. Yet she got a reply: "I will not," and pulled at Thor's eyelids. There were only whites to be seen as the eye was exposed, they had rolled up into his head with whatever ailment he suffered.

"What's wrong with him?" Jane pressed, unable to contain herself.

"If you would be quiet I might be able to find out," he snapped at her acidly, and now Jane wisely held her tongue.

Next Loki grabbed Thor's shoulders and succeeded in moving him when the mortal woman had not. Yet he didn't shake his brother; he moved him towards the legendary war hammer that lay discarded on the ship's floor not far away. Once the large blond was next to it, Loki placed his hand on Mjolnir's handle. Lightning sparkled noisily around the head of the hammer, and then it ran up through the limp hand that had been placed on it and charged through the attached body which twitched violently and was thrown to the other edge of the vessel, knocking Loki down in the process. The energy died out.

Jane watched it horrified, and let out a small, startled shriek.

Loki might have succeeded in what he set out to do, however. Thor groaned quietly and stirred.

**\- Of the Same Scrap and Barley –**

Hermione stood over Harry's body, outside the circle, breathing heavily. It had taken a lot of energy, but the spell was done.

"Was it like this when it was me?" Ron asked from her side, reaching out to steady her.

"Yes," she replied, leaning into this support.

"Then why do you seem so worried?"

"I don't know. Because it's Harry, I guess. If it were to go wrong, it would be with him, wouldn't it?"

Ron's silence said it all. They stood there watching for a while longer. "Come on, let's sit down. It will take a while. Let me tell you a bit more about the time when-" Ron fell silent. Harry's body was spasming, sparks and strands of electricity dancing along his body.

"Harry!" Hermione cried and made to walk across the circle, but Ron held her back, his support turning to a restriction.

"You mustn't," he said even as he was warring with himself, wanting to run to his friend's side too. Hermione whimpered as the energy continued wrecking Harry's body. A bolt of electricity shot out from Harry's curse scar and then it dissipated. They didn't have to wait long until something more happened. Harry made a small noise and moved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Last Edited 1oth December 2015]


	2. Two Sides of a Coin

"Listen to this," Hermione urged Ron and Harry, who she suspected were completely uninterested in what she had to say. Glancing at them she confirmed her suspicion, finding that their attention was firmly on the game of chess they were playing. They might not have heard her speak at all for all the attention they were gracing her with. Despite the unpromising offset she pressed on, convinced that they would start listing soon enough. The book she had gotten when she was in France with her parents years back (and was finally able to read thanks to a crash course she'd taken in the language during July) was well worth paying attention to.

"Although little empirical evidence exists to support the theory I believe that it deserves more credit and acknowledgement," she began to read out loud in English with help of the notes she'd written in the margin. She read loudly so that she could be heard over the din in the Gryffindor Common Room. There might be a small risk that other students would listen in, but she deemed it to be rather small since only a few older students were about (the result of a free hour for many of the NEWT students) and they were busy doing something with prank products from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.

"The small number of case studies done in the late eighteen hundreds provides evidence for the hypothesis that each witch and wizard has a correlate in another dimension. This correlate that each of us has is a being that has a soul reflecting the witch or wizard, giving them a shared essence and many shared characteristics and basic morals. I would not hesitate to say twin souls following the description put forth by Sokoloff in the seventeen hundreds. The evidence was attainted by reaching over dimensional borders and coming back with memories from the correlates.

"All successful memory transfers were with correlates belonging to a long-lived, durable, humanoid race who call themselves the Asgardians (or the Aesir) of Asgard. Upon learning this, and more, the theory evolved to incorporate Norse Mythology because many of the names reported among influential members of the Aesir corresponds with the names of myths. It is believed that the witches and wizards who lived in Northern Europe during the turn of the first millennia of the Common Era knew how to connect with their correlates.

"Asgard is a highly evolved society where magic and science work as one, and the two are difficult to distinguish, in part because most Aesir don't display magical talents the same as a witch or wizard would. Instead they have specialized abilities or do not develop their innate potential at all. However, magical energy is harnessed in technology and understood much along the lines as muggles describe the laws of nature they are able to conceive.

"Asgard is a monarchy ruled by a King known as the Allfather. It is unknown if a Queen could ascend the throne and obtain the full right of ruling as no such practices have been observed during the studies. Two of the eight volunteers of the 1894 study reported that the King's name was Bor, and five reported Odin, son of Bor to be the Allfather. Let it also be noted that one of the latter mentioned that there were rumours in the city about Odin planning to pass on the throne to his son Thor. This leads to the conclusion that time is arbitrary in line up with our reality. The only constant was that the Asgardian that was the witch or wizard always had lived the same percentage of their lifespan as their correlate.

"The Asgardians as a people are proud and their society is built around a warrior culture. Honour is paramount and the ultimate way to end your life is to die in battle, as then you will come to Valhalla where you will feast until the end of times. Because of their warfaring ways, the Asgardians know of other peoples who lived in realms separated from their own. There are nine known realms, one of which is Midgard, which corresponds to our Earth. All progress they have achieved has been in the line of warfare and after achieving a dominant role in the larger world, the advancement of technology has stagnated, which is not surprising, and the same phenomenon can be seen across most of the magical world we call home.

"One of the participants in the study was the Belgian witch Marie Laine. The name of her correlate was Gullhar daughter of Ljosgeir (she was the one who reported on the upcoming coronation of Thor). Gullhar was a skilled healer and with the memories Laine brought back she became a renowned healer herself. Among other things she contributed to the field there was a spell that increased the speed of blood clotting which made healing large open wounds easier. She also invented a spell that removes scar tissue from internal organs, a spell that without a doubt has extended many lives."

Hermione fell silent at last and looked up to see if she'd garnered the reaction she sought. While Ron was keeping his eyes resolutely on the chessboard, pretending as if he'd heard nothing (the pretending part being rather obvious), she had managed to catch Harry's attention.

"If she invented those spells, how come this correlate thing isn't better known?" he asked.

"She wouldn't admit that the study she'd been part of worked. She actually slandered the study. The author of this book claims that she didn't want the credit of the spells she had brought with her to fall on someone else; she liked the attention and the renown they had given her. Lémeiux, that's the author, says that she must have adapted the knowledge she gained to work with our magic, yet that wasn't enough for her. She wanted the complete credit."

Now Ron did look up and he snorted. "Or it's just all pretend," he remarked. "This all sounds like something Luna would believe in, not you."

"That's true," Harry agreed, shifting in his red armchair. "What makes this more credible than anything written in the Quibbler?"

"Lémeiux has included everything there is to know about the study. There are more personal accounts written out from subjects who were far more positive than Laine. There are charts and a discussion on how the group conducting the experiment had planned to move on with it. More test subjects and theory on how to improve the spell that allowed the memories to be absorbed. The French Ministry put a stop to it, however."

"It really does sound like the Quibbler," Ron muttered amusedly, or perhaps his smile was due to his knight beheading one of Harry's bishops, bringing the redhead one move closer to winning the game of chess. Hermione made a face of distaste at seeing the brutal way the chess pieces treated each other. She'd never gotten over seeing it happen with chess figures that were thrice as tall as an average adult.

"What makes me take this seriously isn't what it says, but how it is said," she explained. "It's all written according to scientific norms and in good academic language, especially considering that the text is about a hundred years old. Not to mention, the people responsible for the study are acclaimed in other fields; some of them have published scientific reviews and papers in the muggle world too. There's a lot speaking for this. I believe it's true."

"So we have people who have reflections of ours souls in another universe?" Harry concluded, concentrating on the core of what Hermione was trying to tell them. He believed well enough in people having souls. There were ghosts all over Hogwarts and he'd seen shapes of dead people appearing from Voldemort's wand. After all that, a person who had a soul similar to his own didn't seem all that farfetched. It made him feel a little bit uneasy, but intrigue overpowered the discomfort.

"It seems like it, yes. Wouldn't it be amazing to learn about a different world? Who you could have been?"

She had Ron's willing attention as well as Harry's now. The chess game was abandoned, something the tiny chessmen realized. Some of them had sat down, rolling their tiny thumbs idly, and others were reassembling their fallen comrades.

As they thought about their correlates Ron was imagining a life of fame and fortune while Harry saw before himself the close knit family of which he'd always dreamed. Harry also imagined what he might learn, if anything his correlate knew could help him defeat Voldemort. If so it would be brilliant. "How is it done?" he asked, feeling anticipation, longing and an itch to do something about it awakening inside.

"It's complicated," the witch answered.

"Could we do it?" he pressed.

"Blimey!" Ron exhaled the word, his hands sweeping out, causing the small chessmen to scatter, fleeing for their lives. "You're not thinking that we could actually do it, are you?"

"Why not?" Harry argued. "Think of getting those memories. They might teach us things Voldemort could never hope to match!" The more he was thinking about it, the more enthusiastic he was getting about the idea. In his enthusiasm he didn't notice his friends flinching slightly at the mention of You-Know-Who's name.

"I don't know, Harry," the witch began to say, her forehead wrinkling in a concerned frown.

He didn't let her continue, guessing why she was reluctant. "It's not like we're trying to cheat on some exam," he reasoned. "Nothing is about school anymore, not really. We might still be here, but in a way we're just killing time, trying to learn so that we won't die the first day as legal adults. It's about the war. It's about survival and about making sure he's stopped so that more people don't have to die. Why shouldn't we try this? It was you who brought it up!"

"Well," Hermione began, her voice sounding small after Harry's onslaught and against the backdrop of the now noisier common room where a number of younger students had trickled in over the past few minutes. "The study was stopped for another reason than Marie Laine wanting people to think she was cleverer than she actually was."

When she didn't immediately continue Harry scowled impatiently. "It being?"

Hermione sighed and flipped through the book, landing on a page with a diagram. "They only did eight tests," she pointed to the open page. There were eight rows there, the first column of each one with a name; Marie Laine's among them. "Six of the tests worked exactly like they should and allowed the witches and wizards to step through, take in the life and memories of their correlates and come back safely."

"So what happened with the other two?"

"One wizard barely got any memories at all, and he was fine, but the test was a failure. The last one…" she hesitated, flipping through the book again. Whether she was looking for the information she was referencing or simply stalling, Harry couldn't guess. "Well, as far as they could tell, he got stuck on the other side." She was silent for a moment, allowing the information to sink it. Ron grew somewhat pale. "They kept his body alive for years before his family decided that it was better to let him go. He was worse off than a victim of the Dementor's kiss. If you've had your soul sucked out, the body still breaths and can still be made to eat. This wizard was completely comatose and unresponsive right until the day they decided to not use magic to sustain his soulless body anymore."

"Oh." Disappointment was flowing through Harry in a thick stream. He'd worked his hope up. Perhaps it was foolish to let himself get excited so quickly over something he knew so little about. It was just that the lessons with Dumbledore didn't seem to be going anywhere. And the Prophet was reporting daily about attacks with people being found dead, the Dark Mark over their locations. And Malfoy was skulking around the castle.  _And_  to top it all off, he had the prophecy hanging over his head. He needed something positive to cling onto. He wouldn't have minded that positive something being this.

"Six out of eight it goes well, one out of eight nothing really happens and one out of eight we're lost." Harry stared at Ron as he began to speak, wondering if he was saying what it sounded like. "I think those are good enough odds," the youngest Weasley son said with a thoughtful nod. His entire demeanour was more serious than most people would give him credit for, yet what he said next Harry had still not expected.

"If we try this, I should be the one we try the spell on first. I'm the least valuable of the group. You know, like in first year. I'll do my part, get us as far as I can and then you two can go on putting an end to You-Know-Who. I'm willing to take the risk."

"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed, looking very upset. Her raised voice drew attention and she leaned in closer to the boys, whispering heatedly. "No one's being sacrificed. We can't do it. It's too dangerous. Untested magic like this..! We don't know if we'll draw any benefits from it at all. Marie Laine was lucky that her correlate was a healer. There is no guarantee that we'll learn anything useful and the risks are simply too high! I won't be part of it."

Harry didn't protest against what Ron had said the way Hermione did. He contemplated the merits. He didn't want to lose Ron, didn't want to sacrifice him for anything in the world. The thought of his friend being completely unresponsive, his soul gone forever made him feel like he was falling from his broom in the middle of a storm, lost and without coordination. That Ron meant what he had said, however, meant that he was willing to sacrifice himself, filled Harry with intense gratefulness and affection. Ron might have failed him once, not believing in his innocence during the debacle that was the Triwizard Tournament, but he had come back and he'd proven that he was a true friend, and here he was doing it again. He was also proving that he understood how grave the situation they were in was. Harry had sensed a shift in him when Mr. Weasley came close to dying because of Nagini's poison while guarding the entrance to the Department of Mysteries. The reality of the war had been brought to the Weasley family's doorstep in a tangible and horrifying way. Ron had come to understand how serious it all was. He had also been placed in Gryffindor for a reason; it wasn't only about following in the footsteps of his many brothers. He was brave and would rather risk his own life than endangering the lives of his friends or family, it was admirable. Harry might not jump at accepting a sacrifice such as that, but he thought about it and knew that he should respect Ron's decision. He'd prefer to put himself in danger any day, but he could also accept that Ron shared that view, and he could honour his friend for it.

Besides, Harry thought that Hermione's argument that they wouldn't learn anything worthwhile was a weak one. Their correlates were supposed to be like them, Hermione at least had to learn something of value if she went through with the interaction to her Asgardian counterpart. He would not underestimate Ron either, and if he himself was  _the chosen one_  his correlate had to be useful.

"Thank you, Ron," he said, steadily, calmly, with all the gratefulness and sincerity he could muster. The youngest Weasley son met his gaze without wavering and nodded. Nothing more needed to be said.

Watching the two of them so serious, so determined, so mature for once, Hermione must have understood the gravity of the situation too. It wasn't that she hasn't understood it before. However she had ignored it to some degree, preferring to face the world with more enthusiasm and hope than the situation warranted. "We're doing this then?" she whispered. "We're really going to try this?"

"If you know how," Harry said softly.

She shook her head, thick locks swaying around her face. "Not quite. The actual spell isn't written in the book, although the theory behind it is explained in detail. We would have to reinvent the spell ourselves, but I believe it can be done. Perhaps there is a way to improve the spell, make it safer. If we do this, we do it right. We won't use the spell until we're certain it will work and that it's safe."

"Then we'll research it together and we'll do it right."

They looked at each other and a packet was made. They would do this. They would give it their all.

**\- Of the Same Scrap and Barley –**

Harry was more than a little certain that according to Hermione the best thing to come out of the debacle was how much time they were spending in the library. She just loved the place, with all its the books and having Ron and Harry there with her had made her eyes glow with joy and pride even months after they had made it a routine. All of October, November, December, January and February the trio did little else but attend classes, do homework and eat. However, Harry and Ron did put in a token effort at Quidditch. Harry was after all captain of the Gryffindor team and despite how serious he knew the situation to be, he needed the occasional distraction that the sport provided. He had explained it in a way he knew Hermione could understand, that it was like sleeping; a break for the brain, an opportunity to work in the background, to sort out all the information they were cramming in before yet more was compiled on top. The witch could also clearly see the effects playing the game had on the two teenage boys, especially how it affected Ron. The keeper was always in a good mood after practice and would do some of his best work then, although there was a fine line between him being energetic from playing Quidditch and getting lethargic and whiney as his body demanded rest.

Another benefit Harry was sure Hermione was seeing and which Ron was celebrating too, was that he didn't have as much time to worry about Malfoy. It irritated Harry that neither of his friends supported him in his conviction that the blond Slytherin was up to something heinous. But Harry was willing to give up on some of the time he'd spent Malfoy-watching. They were making progress and it was likely that they would be ready to try the spell out soon after the Easter Holiday.

Each of them had spoken with the professors about some part of the spell and what could be done to make it better. Harry had been put through Slughorn's tender mercies, getting stuck in the potion master's office for the better part of several afternoons. Ron probably manage to raise his grade as he discussed advanced charms theory with a bemused but enthusiastic Flitwick. Hermione had even dared to approach Snape. The nowadays Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor had near enough chewed her face off, belittling her and being suspicious about why she'd asked. However she'd gotten away the information they needed and that was a victory.

During Christmas they had milked Ron's relatives and various Order members for all they were worth. Hermione and Harry had jointly spoken with Fleur, getting her opinion on some translations as Hermione was struggling with understanding some documents they had procured from the original research, it being written in a dialect of French, rather than the standard. Ron had suffered asking Fred and George for help as the twins were splendid inventors of all kinds. Harry had come to his rescue after Ron's freckles had been hexed to flash in neon colours and move around his body, the twins being more willing to assist him as they thought themselves indebted to him for his monetary support.

Reinventing the spell was some of the most difficult work the trio had ever set out to do, but they approved their abilities across all magical fields and it showed in their course work. Whether they were successful or not, they would have gained a lot from trying.

**\- Of the Same Scrap and Barley –**

It was the end of March; the grounds below Hogwarts Castle were covered in small patches of snow, the last remnants of winter. Students were eager for the one week holiday with rest from school work that was coming up, the fifth and seventh year students drawing sighs of relief at the respite they would get before the work load would intense in preparation for exams.

The trio had tried to use the Room of Requirement for their project a whole week earlier, but had been unable to get inside. Like they had noticed a few times before, two first year girls had been standing in the corridor, watching them suspiciously as they passed by and when the Marauder's Map was consulted it was shown that they were none other than Crabbe and Goyle. Harry had taken some vindictive pleasure in showing his friends that Malfoy really was up to something and that he was using the Room to do whatever it was. Hermione had not been too impressed, however; she pointed out that Harry's theory about Malfoy having the Dark Mark still wasn't proven. Ron was just annoyed that they couldn't get the project done and stayed out of the argument. He had become increasingly nervous during the weeks leading up to the day they had planned to go through with the spell, and having to wait even longer for an opportunity at privacy was not something he enjoyed. When his sister had come up to them in the common room asking if he was feeling ill he had snapped at her. Since, Ginny had sent glares at him and during the most recent Quidditch practice she had consistently aimed at Ron's head with the quaffle, succeeding in hitting him more than a few times. Ron had muttered to Harry about being a bad captain afterwards, for allowing his players to conduct themselves like that, but Harry had only innocently pointed out that it was likely the Slytherins would use a similar tactic and it was good practise.

They had waited to get back into the Room of Requirement an entire week, because they had estimated that they would need a whole weekend to go through with the spell with time for them to rest up and get comfortable with the change the attained memories was bound to result in.

They got up early this first Saturday in April, determined to reach the Room before Malfoy could. A repeat of the previous week wasn't acceptable. As Harry paced in the hallway by the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy he thought intently of a Room where they would be completely undisturbed, where they would be comfortable for a long time and have all the space they needed to perform the spell. As he turned back around after his third time passed the door he shared a relieved sigh with his friends, seeing the door appear as it should.

"Let's do this," he said.

"Yeah," Ron, who was looking alarmingly pale all of a sudden, agreed. The freckles on his nose were standing in sharp contrast to the rest of the skin, which was sickly white. But he squared his shoulders, opening the door and striding inside. Hermione shared a glance with Harry before they too entered the room. As the door slid shut behind them it melded into the wall, giving them assurance of the privacy they had requested.

"Should we review the procedures?" Hermione asked, dumping her bag in an armchair.

"Do we really have to?" Ron asked, having slumped down in another armchair. His gangly body was spilling out of it, making for a slightly comical look, not that any of them was in a mood to see the humour in the situation. "We've been going over this for the past several weeks. For the past year."

"It hasn't been a year," Hermione remarked, but was ignored.

"We've reworked the spell top to bottom. We've researched runes and rituals to make it safe. We've done it all thrice, for Merlin's sake! If we're not prepared now, we won't be in an hour."

"Fine," she agreed curtly. "I just thought you'd might like to take some time to think this through one last time. We don't have to do this. You don't have to be depredated to a test subject."

"Perhaps we don't have to do it," Ron murmured, "but with all the work we've put in, letting it go now would be wrong if you get what I mean. I'm ready for this. I'm not backing out."

"Alright. Let's start." The witch pulled out the journal where she had painstakingly written down every little detail of the spell and the accompanying ritual that they would use, as well as drawing out the three vials of a potion they had brewed.

When she handed one of them over, Ron hesitated a second before he accepted the vial. He looked at the clear liquid inside with some trepidation. The potion was supposed to help clear the mind, to make it more susceptible to the experience ahead. Since there was a risk that not many memories would transfer, as that had happened in the 1894 trials, they wanted to enhance whatever they could get.

"Cheers!" he said in a choked tone, uncorking the vial and chugging it down.

"What does it taste like?" Harry asked

"Like ink and tomatoes," Ron replied with a grimace.

Harry made a sympathetic face. Not as bad as some potions he'd had, but certainly bad enough.

"How does it feel?" Hermione asked, always the more practical one.

"Not too different."

"We have to test if it's worked."

"The number sequence?"

"Yes."

They had devised a test for the potion beforehand. While they could have tried the potion beforehand too, they had only managed to brew a small quantity as the potion was tricky and a couple of the ingredients in it were on the expensive side. The test was setup to test short term memory by having the subject repeat a series of numbers. They had tested how well they could do it without the potion and now they were about to see if there was any difference with it.

Hermione rattled off twenty numbers in quick succession. When they'd last tried it Ron had only managed to repeat a handful. Now he got them all.

"I guess it worked then," Ron concluded, not sounding too enthusiastic about it all.

"You can still back out of it," Hermione reminded him.

"Stop saying that already," he snapped. "We're doing this. I've been saying so from the start. I'm not about to change my mind."

"Fine, fine, sorry." She took out a stick of chalk and started to measure out a circle that followed a precise sequence of numbers she'd calculated using Arithmancy. As Harry and Ron watched she then wrote runes along the edge of the circle. The arrangement was supposed to be used as protection and an anchor, to keep a person going through to the world of the correlates bound to their original body. It took her about half an hour as she time and again had to erase runes and redo them, determined to not make a single mistake.

"She's worse with this than with homework or exams," Ron muttered to Harry.

"She has good reason to be," Harry shot back unimpressed. "This is our lives on the line, not just a grade."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, but still. I do know this is serious. It got me working on academic stuff, didn't it? I'll never forget the way Flitwick looked at me when I asked about the nature of location charms and their correlation to mind affecting charms. I don't know if it was my use of the word correlation that got to him or that I discussed how the two are connected before waiting for an answer."

Harry grinned, reluctantly amused. "Probably the use of a difficult word."

Ron snorted. "I wonder if it will change me, having the memories of another person. I know that the person will resemble me, having the same characteristics and values as the guy more or less share my soul, but we will still have lived a completely different lives and have different experiences."

"Some change is to be expected," Harry said quietly. "Memories define us. If anything Dumbledore's lesson this year has taught me that."

The tall Gryffindor shook his head. "Those lessons with the Headmaster have been a real letdown, haven't they? Watching memories of stinking You-Know-Who as a kid; strange and creepy."

"Creepy and a half. Dumbledore must have a plan with showing me them, but he won't tell me what it is and I have no idea on my own. I've not exactly been trying hard to get that memory from Slughorn either."

"Who knows, perhaps I'm a genius in this other reality, once I get those memories I'll solve all our problems!" Ron fantasised.

The dark haired teen chuckled. "As if that job wouldn't be Hermione's."

"Aw, mate, give me some credit!"

"Yes, of course. You're a genius. Of course your correlate will be too."

"Maybe he's good at strategy or something? I'm decent at chess after all; if I used that sort of thinking in a different way I might have gotten good at using it practically. I'm not too shoddy a keeper either, coordination like that might be useful in battle."

That wasn't a bad assumption to make; Harry had to concede the point. The number of times he'd seen anyone beat Ron at chess could be countered at the fingers of one hand and Ron had played a lot of chess games. He was also a decent keeper, whenever he remembered to believe in himself, and Ron's confidence had been growing.

"Let's just hope that it all works out."

"It has to. With the precautions we're taking I can't see it going any other way. I won't get stuck. I know I won't."

"It's all done," Hermione announced, getting up from the floor and brushing her hands together to get rid of the chalk. A small dust cloud spread out from her palms, filling the air. Light from the windows behind her trickled through the particles, creating a mystical effect that was all too appropriate for the situation.

Looking at the carefully drawn figures on the floor Harry could almost sense the power that was residing within them. For him to sense it, they must have done something right. Though he might be imagining it. He'd never felt magic like that before.

He turned as he heard Ron's stomach grumble. "Great job, Hermione," the other boy said. "I know I said that I wanted to do it as soon as possible, no delays, but perhaps we could eat breakfast first after all?"

"Of course," she said easily, though with an eye roll. "The potion will last long enough that I see no problem with it." While she as always would bicker with Ron, Hermione had toned it down considerably since they began working on this project, trying her very hardest to stop arguments before they could begin. It was as if she wanted to commend him for the sacrifice she knew he was making and was determined to let him have good time should it all end badly.

"Breakfast should have been served up by now," Harry commented looking at a clock that had helpfully appeared on the wall within his sight.

"We can't all leave the room," Hermione pointed out. "It might revert or," she bit her lip, "or Malfoy might enter and keep us out. I'll stay behind, just bring me some toast back with you."

Glancing at Hermione and trying to judge if she would bite his head off for suggesting it Ron said in a weak, squeak; "Call for Dobby."

"Ron!" the witch predictably admonished before he'd even said the last syllable. "House elves are not here to serve us at our beck and call. They do a good job at cleaning and providing food. The least we can do is to conduct ourselves within the set framework."

"He likes being called, you know that. He adores Harry."

"Well," she hesitated. She couldn't very well disagree. She knew how much Dobby liked Harry, how much the house elf liked all three of them; her for giving him clothes and Ron simply for being associated with the two of them and being kind where most wizards wouldn't be. "Fine."

Dobby was called up and he was indeed delighted to help out, going so far as to admonish Hermione for not immediately agreeing to use his services, though after he said that he turned very anxious and Harry had to order him not to hurt himself.

The breakfast food that was served up in the Room went beyond what they could have expected and while Hermione scowled at it, muttering about extra work for the house elves and Dobby not understanding that he was being used, and she couldn't keep her negative attitude for long as the delicious food filled her up and gave her energy. Ron too seemed to feel more encouraged with every bite that he swallowed. The pallor he had kept since entering the Room dissipated leaving him seeming healthier and more excited than in a long time, which his friends took as a good omen.

Eventually though there was no more stalling to be had. It was time for the spell. They had prepared for it so long, working very hard and now their effort would at last come to fruitarian.

Ron entered the large circle Hermione had drawn, being careful to not step on the chalk lines and he then lay down on his back, hands at this side and eyes closed.

"You best do the spell, Hermione," Harry said. "You know you're the best of us at magic."

"Okay," she said, not bothering with any false modesty. In nearly all subjects she was the first to understand how to cast a spell and it wasn't only because she had the theoretical knowledge; she was in tuned with her magic, knowing how to make it work. This was the first time they could cast it properly too; there had been no way to practice other than saying the words and doing the wand movements without having any idea if it worked. "Are you ready, Ron?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

Carefully Hermione enunciated the spell they had worked so hard to recreate. Harry observed silently, trusting in her ability. Her wand work looked as precise as he had expected it to, the pattern of the wand tip timed perfectly with the incantation. Once the word was spoken she and Harry waited with bated breath, trying to see if anything had happened. They were standing outside the circle, Ron many feet away from them in the middle of it and completely unmoving. "Ron?" Hermione tried, her voice strained, the spell had taken a lot out of her. There was no response.

"It will take some time," Harry reassured her. "We know that."

"Of course." She put her arms around herself, as if suddenly struck with a chill. They went and sat down in the armchairs to wait.

Although it would have been fine for them to speak, both Gryffindors kept silent. Harry wasn't enjoying the churning, cold feeling that was spreading throughout his stomach, chasing away the warmth the breakfast had placed there. He was feeling slightly nauseous actually, regretting eating that last piece of toast. He wondered if allowing Ron to go through with this had been the best idea, all things considered. Of course there was a lot to gain and they had researched the spell thoroughly, and he was confident in their accomplishment, but even so, thinking about what it would mean if the spell went wrong had him reeling now. It made him feel guilty in a manner similar to how he'd felt after the debacle at the Ministry at the beginning of the summer. Ron hadn't escaped unscathed then. He knew that his friend was forever marked with scars on his arms from the grip of the tentacled brains, marked by thoughts, similar in a way to what they were trying for now. He had survived that time, but now, there was no certainty. There was also the question of how different Ron would be if it was all working out like it should. He would come out changed, that was a certainty. The uncertain part was  _how_  changed he would be.

Harry grabbed the book that had started it all and began to skim through one of the successful accounts. Through working on the project he had begun to learn a little French, and he had some parts more or less memorized in Hermione's translations. There was a section written by one witch who'd gone through it. She discussed how she'd felt after absorbing the memories of her correlate. She described it as emotional and intellectual growth, the understanding of another life that could have just as well been her own. She said that she felt like the same person she'd always been, just more experienced and with a respect for other cultures and people who lived under another philosophy than the one she'd grown up with. Harry hoped wholeheartedly that it would be just like that, that Ron would wake up soon and be the friend he'd always known, only wiser and more mature.

"Something's going on," Hermione said quietly and Harry looked over at Ron. He was as unmoving as before, or at least that's what he thought. Getting up to see better he noticed that under the closed eyelids Ron's eyes were moving rapidly as if he was dreaming.

"He's getting some memories," he guessed.

"It looks like it. This is good. The case with Jacquemin," Elouan Jacquemin was the wizard who had been lost on the other side, "says that he never reached this state. Ron should be fine."

"Yeah," Harry breathed out the word, expelling some of the tension that had been building, along with the air. It was good. Ron would probably be fine. Nothing was certain yet, but the signs were good.

As he looked up he noticed that Hermione had tears in her eyes. "Are you okay?" he asked softly, reaching out to take her hand. She wasn't satisfied with that, and pulled him into a hug.

"You have no idea how worried I have been," she half sobbed against his shoulder as Harry awkwardly stroked her back. "I've been so worried that I'd get something wrong; that we'd lose him. I know everything was as prepared as it could be. I have checked and double checked so many times, but there are no guarantees. I've been wondering if we're just foolish, hopeful children. Magic wasn't real until I turned eleven. I don't think I've ever truly been able to tell if it is real or how much of it is. Perhaps this was only a fairytale and I'd at last reached the final page, falling back out into the real world."

"No, no," he reassured her, even as he tried to swallow her confession about her doubts, "you said it yourself, the book is written with scientific principles. We have some of the original documents; you've looked up Lemain, this is real. And we worked hard, we haven't missed anything, I know we haven't. You did a great job, Hermione. We did an amazing job."

She drew back and rubbed at her eyes with her sleve. "We did, didn't we? We've done amazing things over the years, but never before anything like this. I don't know which example would be the best to compare to. The tournament, when we brewed Polyjuice Potion. Yet neither of those cases were as bad as this."

"Really?" Harry said. "The tournament was rather bad, I could have died."

"Stop it!" she hit him in the shoulder. "Of course it was bad! But we didn't know it the same way we do this time. We didn't know what waited in that maze. We thought - or I thought - that if anything went wrong, the professors would be there to put everything back together. It was dangerous, yes, but they had made the tournament safer after people died in the past."

"And with the Polyjuice?"

She laughed lightly, hiccupping because of her previous tears. "A thirteen year old brewing that potion in a toilet!" She shook her head. "We should never have done it, of course. The difference is that it's a potion that's well-tested. A lot of people have used it; the recipe had been improved several times. This that we're doing now; it is experimental magic."

"You should never have doubted yourself."

"How could I not? This is too serious to not give into doubt; it was doubt that kept me awake late into the night, looking over everything, perfecting it. It was doubt that made me go to the library early in the mornings to search for yet another book on spell crafting and magical theory."

Harry grinned wryly. "That just sounds like how you are normally."

"Shut up." Harry had managed what he wanted, however; she was smiling.

They sat down to wait again. The flickering of Ron's eyelids abated not too long after, and then, if everything went as it should, there would be an equally long period of stillness as the one that had preceded the memory transfer.

Right on time Ron drew in a deep breath, as if delving up from under water and opened his eyes.

They observed him, still silent. He sat up slowly, leaning on his arms, before crouching forward. He shook his head, blinking and rubbing at his jaw with the knuckles of his left hand before turning his face to them. "Hi," he said.

As it was all over now Hermione thought it safe to enter the circle and she rushed to Ron's side, kneeling by him. "How are you feeling?" she asked urgently.

"Good," he replied. "I feel good, Hermione. You don't have to worry about me. The best way I can describe it is like I feel more like myself than I have ever done before, if that makes sense."

"Not one whit," said Harry.

"I suppose not," Ron agreed looking up. "It's something you have to experience for yourself to truly understand."

"Can you move? You might be more comfortable on one of the sofas."

"I think I'd like that." Harry shared a quick glance with Hermione as Ron got to his feet, wobbling a bit and Hermione dived under his arm to support him. "I'm okay," he reassured her, but he didn't shrug her off, giving her a thankful smile as she deposited him on a sofa, allowing him to recline across it, and taking an armchair for her own as Harry did the same.

Ron seemed calm. Very calm. It was a bit eerie. "Don't look at me like that," he told them when they had silently observed him for several long minutes. "I'm still me." As if to prove his point he grabbed a sandwich that had been left on a table between them since breakfast and stuffed it into his mouth without sitting up properly. "Seein ano'e' life ma'es you hun'ry," he said, talking around the bread.

Having Ron behave in such a familiar fashion did relax the other two, which made Ron smug and when Harry noticed it he understood that they had been played, but he couldn't be angry about it. He was too relieved that his friend was up and talking.

"Do you feel like telling us about it, about what you experienced?" Hermione asked, her voice a bit timid.

Ron frowned as he swallowed his overly large bite. "Do I have something on my face? Like a frown? Blood maybe? Come on, I'm still me. I won't bite or hurt you or anything. And sure I'll tell you a bit, of course. That's part of why we're doing this, right? So, I well. I don't remember my - his," he fell silent. "This will be weird.  _His_  life. I don't remember all of it. Only significant parts and a few random bits. That what's makes it easier to still be me; still be Ron I mean." He took another bite of his sandwich and chewed with his mouth obnoxiously open, though he did swallow before continuing this time. "Like the people in the book my correlate is Asgardian. Unlike me he's an only child. That was refreshing and a bit sad. Makes me appreciate my family more. I think I understand you better Harry."

The green eyed teen nodded. "Does your correlate have a name you feel like sharing?"

"Sure. Noid Jahlmarson. He's a soldier, working closely under a young Asgardian general called Týr, he's being trained to take up command in the army. I guess I was right about the chess taking a different form if used differently. I learned a few useful battle strategies, at least I think so. They might have to be adjusted for wizards, but the basics are the same."

"It all worked," Hermione murmured, sounding a bit stunned, considering what she'd told Harry while Ron was under, about wondering what parts of magic was real, her reaction wasn't surprising. "It actually worked."

"Of course it did, you did most of the work. How could you make anything wrong?"

She blushed at the praise, but looked distinctly pleased by it, the success making the words easier to hear. "There were no guarantees."

"I'm not going to dwell on that now. We succeeded. I learned something useful and like I said, I sort of feel more like myself than I ever did before. Asgardians are so old generally. All that experience Noid had; it makes me feel more confident in myself, like I know who I am and what I want. Like I know what matters and what in life is just a bother that you can shake off and forget about."

"So a soldier?"

"Yep."

"What did Asgard look like?" Hermione asked, her eyes alighting with academic curiosity.

"It's magnificent, grand. There's water throughout the city, and the buildings are all of stone and each one is decorated with carvings. There are tall towers and arched bridges and gardens between the houses. The palace lies in the heart of the city, towering over everything else."

And so Ron went on, describing the geography of Asgard as best he could, reporting that Odin was the Allfather and that there had been a war with Jotunheim that had ended only years before. He spoke about visiting Midgard and seeing muggles living primitively, which had made him realize that the muggles in modern day England were a lot more like wizards than he'd previously thought. He told them about Vanaheim too, where he had lived for a number of years during his youth, as Noid's father worked to establish diplomatic connections with the Realm on the Allfather's orders. He spoke until his voice grew hoarse and then they began to think of what they should do next. Harry wished to connect with his correlate next, and as everything had turned out well with Ron, no one saw a reason to object.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN 2nd December 2015
> 
> Welcome to the story. I hope you enjoyed the prologue and the first chapter. The direction this story is taking; I'll tell you that it's surprising me in the best of ways. It feels awesome.
> 
> One of the reasons I write are you. Knowing that you read the story, and seeing the reviews you leave keep me going when I struggle with the writing. Please let me know how you liked the chapter, what thoughts it stirred up or just say hi. I love knowing that you have been here reading, no matter how long it has been since the chapter was posted.
> 
> There will be a new chapter out in a week. See you then!
> 
> [Last Edited 10th December 2015]


	3. Leave Nothing to Chance

Harry lay down in the chalk circle Hermione had drawn on the floor of the Room or Requirement. It had not changed since Ron was the one to lie down; they had inspected the pattern to make sure that it remained in pristine condition. The stone floor was cold and hard beneath him as he stretched out on his back. He had sunlight in his eyes, which he closed, seeing red spots on the inside of his eyelids. When he closed his eyes harder they spots turned a mix of dark purples and greens, though it was mostly black. He breathed evenly, concentrating on the sound of air being drawn in and pushed out of his lungs.

"Are you sure you want to keep your glasses on?" Ron asked him.

"They don't matter, and yes I'll keep them on," he replied. He wanted to be able to see as soon as he woke up again. He didn't want to stumble once he'd received the memories. The confusion all that new input would induce would be enough of a hassle, adding half-blindness to it was unnecessary.

"Are you ready?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah," he breathed. He was ready; eager. Moving his mouth had brought forth the taste of the mind clarity potion he'd drunk, the pungent taste of tomatoes with the sharp one of ink coming to life and making his face twitch. Lying there, waiting for the spell to draw him down was uncomfortable. The waiting was the worst of it. He knew what to expect, had heard Ron describe the sensation in his own words, not sparing any details as Hermione urged him on and asked specific questions.

"Alright, I'll cast the spell now." The witch went ahead and did just that.

As soon as she'd spoken the words of the incantation Harry felt himself falling; drifting downwards and away into darkness, sinking slowly and comfortably, just like Ron had described.  _It's working_ , he thought, reassured. Next he would experience the memories. He felt curious; strong anticipation building in his stomach. He wondered who his correlate would be. He had wondered for a long time now, imagined things. Hopefully he'd get something useful out of it. There was magic in that other world, some of the Aesir could use it. If only his soul twin could be one of them. He needed to know something worthwhile, something Voldemort wouldn't be able to counter.

Harry waited for the darkness to dissipate and start experience the promised sounds, colours and emotions.

The darkness prevailed.

Harry's metaphorical heart sank. Something was wrong. He just knew it. If something was to go wrong, of course it would happen when the spell was applied to him. It was just his luck.

Still encased in darkness he felt his body taking form. It wasn't like waking up, he wasn't becoming aware of something that was already there; his body was forming from something. Magic or thought. Consciousness or matter.

As he opened his eyes he concluded that he wasn't in the Room of Requirement, one single glance told him as much. He wasn't even lying down. He had materialized in a standing position. He could feel the weight of his body supported by his feet, which were free of the shoes he'd worn before Hermione cast the spell on him. He was in fact, completely naked.

While everything was dark around him, complete and utter formless blackness, he could see his own body; his pale skin with a spattering of dark hairs. His knobby knees, his calloused fingers and scarred hand. It was weird. He began to move. If it wasn't for the pressure on the soles of his feet he'd say that he was weightless and he wouldn't be surprised if his hair was standing on end more than usual, floating in this space of nothingness. When he breathed it was as if the air was lighter than usual, as if his body was going through the motions though there was no need to inhale oxygen. And when he made a small tentative noise, moving his vocal cords, he wasn't sure if there was any sound made for his ears to take in, or if there was another set of senses responsible for the action.

Turning around there was still only darkness to be seen; all encompassing, formless black. Moving was strange, as if his eyes had remained closed. Blinking and holding his eyelids open produced no different results.

The only sensation provided was the feel of a smooth surface under his bare feet. Tracing it with his foot there wasn't a single ridge. Nothing stood out. It was neither warm nor cold. It was as little as it could possibly be while still holding him up.

He began to walk. At first he thought that the movement was idle, aimless, but then he notice that he was feeling drawn towards something. There was a growing sensation of a tugging in his core, akin to the pull of a Portkey but many times more subtle and placed deeper than the spot behind his navel.

"Who goes there?" a voice asked, distant, barely so that he could hear it. Straining his eyes Harry could just make out a figure coming from the direction he was heading. He moved towards it at a quicker pace, and it moved towards him too. The closer they got, the stronger the pull became so that there was no doubting that the figure was the source behind it.

Eventually he could make out that it was a man who had called out to him. He was tall, had blond hair that fell in waves past his shoulders and a short beard in the same colour. He was also as naked as the wizard. Harry had been unable to let his eyes stray from the man's feet up over his body to notice everything about him, which left a flush in his cheeks. The blond stranger was a big man, physically imposing with rippling muscles. He felt heat rise in his cheeks for looking and resolutely kept his eyes on the man's face from then on out; looking into blue eyes that were meeting his gaze head on.

"Who are you, and why have I been brought to this place?" The man had a voice laden with command; however, it was hiding uncertainty. He didn't know any better than Harry what this place was.

"I could ask you the same questions," Harry said stubbornly, refusing to be intimidated.

His defiance earned him a fierce scowl. The man, however, seemed to visibly calm himself, the fists his large hands had knotted into releasing. "I shall not assume that you are responsible for my predicament, as it is unworthy of me. I am Thor of Asgard, and if you know anything of how I have come to be here I would be obliged if you would tell me."

Thor of Asgard. Harry stared. He couldn't help himself. Thor Odinson was standing before him; there was no question about it. Leaping to the conclusion that Thor was his correlate was easy; there was no other feasible reason for him to be there. His correlate was the future king, or perhaps he was king already. Chosen one must be the soul twin of someone useful, yeah, he should have known; but this! He had to ask if Thor was who he thought, even if it might make him seem like the largest fool the Asgardian had ever met. "Thor Odinson?" he asked, and cleared his throat as the words came out sounding weak and strangled.

"Yes, that is I."

"Of Asgard? As in King of Asgard?"

The Asgardian frowned. "No, why would you think thus? My father rules Asgard, as his son I am mearly her protector."

"Oh." That gave him a little clue about the timeline, though he could have guessed it. If they were correlates (which they had to be, otherwise he was even more screwed than it seemed) Thor must be relatively young. "I'm Harry Potter, eh, son of James and well, I think it might be my fault that you are here after all."

The scowl made a sudden and unpleasant return. "Are you in league with the Dark Elves, with the enemies of Asgard? What is your purpose in bringing me here?" His voice thundered and Harry flinched slightly at the sound, ready to get out of dodge should he be attacked.

"No, no! It's a mistake! It was a mistake!"

"If you do not wish to keep me prisoner in this place, undo your  _mistake_."

The wizard did not appreciate the order, or the tone that suggested he was lying. He got angry in turn and what intimidation he'd been feeling melted away.

"It was a mistake," he repeated, enunciating the words carefully and glaring darkly (blasted Snape would have been proud of the glower). "I did not want this to happen and I don't know why it did."

"You refuse to send me back?" Thor growled, moving closer so that his height allowed him to tower over Harry. And he was tall. While Harry had grown quiet a bit over the past year he only reached this man's chin. He backed away, aiming to put them on more even ground again. As he shuffled back, he had to fight the tug inside that was telling him to be as close as possible to the other man. The pull was almost static, like the tension in the air before a storm.

"It's not that I don't want to send you back, it's that I don't know how," he clarified crossly. "As I said, it was a mistake and I don't know what went wrong, and because of that I don't know how to fix it." He paused, stopping the spiel that might bubble up his throat. He could understand why Thor was angry. He would be too if he was in the Asgardian's position. He had to be the bigger man and own up to what had happened.

"I'm sorry for dragging you into this." Harry might not sound completely sincere, but he meant the words; he was sorry for dragging the other man into this mess.

"I was trying to move through to another dimension than my own," he began to explain; Thor deserved to hear the truth, he was a victim in this, far more so than Harry. "The goal was to see the memories of a person who has a reflection of my soul. I knew there was a risk that something would go wrong. People who have done it before me have failed. I guess that is what happened. I didn't think it would affect someone else, though. If I knew that someone innocent would be affected too I might not have done it. Though it is possible I might still have. I needed those memories. War is coming and I am in a position where I have to do something about it." Those words were also true. He was beginning to feel guilty. Thor hadn't asked for this. He hadn't been able to make a choice, to weigh the risks against the possible gain. And despite that, Harry would do it again. He had chosen this because he needed to.

"These are odd matters you speak of, Harry, son of James, yet I feel inclined to believe that you are sincere," Thor uttered. "If you wish to right this wrong, then that is commendable. I would prefer had it not happened, but now we must work together. Tell me all you know about what you were endeavouring to accomplish."

**\- Of the Same Scrap and Barley –**

Harry did as requested. It took a long time, although it was difficult to tell exactly how long since the darkness around them remained absolute, giving no inkling to the passage of time. His throat didn't get sore from talking and his legs didn't grow tired from standing. He was simply there, exactly as he had entered, as unchanging as his surroundings.

Harry had brought up his theory that they were correlates; that it was the reason for why Thor and not anyone else had been pulled to this place along with Harry. The Asgardian hadn't seemed particularly pleased with the idea at first, but after allowing the conversation to briefly extend to Harry's life he had become less reluctant and did agree that they did have something in common. While this exploration of their characters and how they resonated was interesting, Thor was keener to find a solution to their predicament, stating that he had to return. Harry might be facing a war, but the Asgardian prince was already in one.

"I have not changed the direction I was facing when I arrived in this place," Thor commented once Harry couldn't come up with anything more to say regarding the spell. "I saw you from the beginning and moved towards you. In a world of space I would also be moving away from something. In a world of time, that something would be where I came from, because I was there before. If those ideas are valid here, then returning, going back to our place of arrival might be enough to bring us back. Walking through this place in the direction behind us, might lead to a way out."

It sounded reasonable, yet Harry was hesitant. "And if it doesn't work, then we'll not only be stranded here, but alone too," he remarked glumly. The prospect of once more being completely surrounded by the black infinity, without anything to rest his eyes on, without someone to speak to, frightened him more than he liked to admit. Thor hadn't done much talking, but there was a sense of kinship between them. Whether the kinship stemmed from the likelihood of being each other's correlates or from being stranded there together was irrelevant, it was there. He didn't want to be alone.

"It is a risk we need to take. Though if we move as I have suggested, a turn in the wrong direction would at any time lead us back to each other."

"A direct turn," Harry repeated in a monotone. "That's comforting. If we go far enough, even the smallest fault in direction would make us walk the wrong way."

"Maybe it is so, but do you not agree that we have to take the risk?"

Harry stayed silent for a beat or two. Standing around wouldn't solve anything. Probably. They had to go back. They had to take the risk. "Yes, we have to try," he agreed.

"Then it is decided."

Without further ado, Thor turned, giving Harry a good and unwelcome view of his backside, and started to walk at a quick pace.

Heaving a sigh, Harry did the same. For each step he took and for each step he supposed Thor took as well, the feeling that had drawn him to the man protested, tugging him back. He ignored it, moving in the direction he had set out.

After some time, long enough that he felt as if he couldn't recall what Thor looked like or the sound of his voice, the sensation he associated with the Asgardian began to dissipate. Taking it as encouragement, evidence that they were moving apart, reaching home, he hurried on.

All around the darkness remained, unchanging, static, discouraging. He could walk for eternity without anything ever changing, without seeing anything new, feeling anything new. If nothing was changing, was there an eternity to speak of? Was there time and space? If there was space and time there it might be endless. In a way, the two were equitable. If there was nothing or if there was everything, his experience of it would be the same. Hermione had talked about theories which said that the universe was without limits and at the same time it might be spherical, same as the earth was and if you went far enough you'd come back to your starting point. Not that a starting point was possible to determine with the current understanding of the universe, as in space everything moved relative to each other.

Harry didn't quite know where those thoughts came from; he hadn't deemed it relevant before, even if his friend had explored the possibility that they might need the information to create the spell, but as the sensation that had once drawn him to Thor began to be perceivable to him anew, he understood where the last thought came from. He hadn't changed direction, yet, given a long stretch of time more; he could discern Thor moving towards him.

The man's countenance told him that he too had stayed on his course.

"Son of James," the Asgardian greeted him sounding rather more subdued than before, nonthreatening and tired. "It appears that my plan did not work."

"Yeah," Harry replied dully. He felt defeated. He had absolutely no idea what to do now. Yet there was the feeling, like a mild version of the pull of a Port Key. He'd been so uncomfortable all along with the idea of being close to Thor because of their shared nakedness, but perhaps that was the answer.

"I haven't told you exactly everything," he admitted.

"You have wilfully withheld information," Thor stated. Anger was growing on his face once more. "I have informed you of my dire need to return and I do not appreciate dishonesty. Especially not when it hinders my progress and threatens the people under my protection. You claim that we are so called counterparts, yet such dishonesty I feel no kinship with."

Harry started seething. "Why are you so quick to accuse me? I told you as much as I thought relevant. I agreed to your plan. What I'm talking about now is just a stupid feeling that I have. I didn't think that it was important."

Thor's anger seemed to abate somewhat, though a wrinkle between his brow, showing his irritation remained. They were both tense, something the situation warranted, but their quick changes in demeanour were not helping.

"In my experience of magic and of all important matters, feelings should not be disregarded," Thor said, stretching out an olive branch. "What is this feeling of which you speak?"

"When I first got here, I was confused. I know I spun around, trying to see if there was anything here. I don't know which direction I was facing in the beginning, yet I felt something and it made me chose a direction. That feeling led me to you. I can feel it now too. As we were moving away from each other it died, then it came back and then I saw you. It feels a bit like electricity maybe, but it's too vague for me to explain it well."

"It is a curious thing you describe. I feel nothing of the sort, yet you're a wizard while I am not."

"I don't know what it means, if it means anything."

"Electricity and lightning are similar states of energy and the storm is my domain, which could be why the sensation translates through a feeling of electricity."

"It could be. What are you doing?" Harry flinched as Thor moved towards him, towering above him again, and then for the first time they touched. It was as simple as Thor's hand grazing his shoulder, yet it changed everything. The darkness turned blindingly white and Harry experienced a feeling as if he was falling head first while being charged with energy.

**\- Of the Same Scrap and Barley –**

Harry gasped, flailing about. There hadn't been an impact, he hadn't hit his head at the ground, yet everything was changed. He was on his back. The darkness was gone. As was the sudden intense light and the pain of the charge, even as the memory lingered (if he was to guess, he'd say that he'd been hit by lightning). There was a sky above him, a stormy sky with murky brown clouds swirling about, looking ominous.

"Thor!" a relieved female voice called out. Harry looked around to see if the Asgardian was around. No amount of looking around yielded any trace of the man, which raised the question why his name had been called. He could see that he was in a vessel of some sort; it reminded him of a boat, but there was no water around.

"Thor?" the voice repeated, weaker. The speaker was a woman who was kneeling by his side. Small. Brown hair. Blue dress, brown coat. Strange pale blue and black eyes. Behind her stood a tall, lean, dark haired man.

He moved a bit, trying to sit up, yet stumbled as he was hindered by a cape that was stuck to his shoulder. He saw his hands. Large. Strong. Not his.

"Merlin," he lamented softly and cringed at the sound of his voice. It wasn't his own either. Thor touching him had made something happen alright. If he was any judge, it had pulled him the wrong way. Into Thor's reality. Into Thor's body. And he didn't posses a single of the man's memories to guide him. He was lost.

Harry felt like he'd drunk Polyjuice Potion, uncoordinated and strange. The body was all wrong and he had a lingering sense of itchiness that was slowly growing fainter. His face felt scruffy, and touching it he felt the beard he knew would be there. The whiskers and course hair were unfamiliar beneath the pads of his fingers, which seemed to possess keener sensitivity than he was used to. The armour he was wearing was not like anything he'd worn before. He felt that there was metal and leather, yet it wasn't as unyielding as it should be and whether it was because the armour was of better make than he could fathom, or if it was his different body he was unable to say. It was all wrong. All of it. He missed his nearsightedness, his scars and stupid hair.

He barely knew a thing about the circumstances of his counterpart. He knew Thor was the son of Odin Allfather, but in the memories of Ron's counterpart, the prince had been but a child, so everything he knew was accounts by people he didn't know. He couldn't base his expectations on that knowledge. Of the people in the French study only one had mentioned Thor at all, and that had been in passing. He knew more about the Thunder God from Norse legends than from the sparse writings of Marie Laine. Not that he dared trust the legends.

Laine's account did tell him a bit about the dark haired man however, the description was unmistakable. He was Loki, Thor's brother, and one of the most accomplished sorcerers on Asgard. He hoped he could trust Laine over mythology when it came to Odin's second son. He would in all probability need the man's help.

But how he should go about attaining it was a whole completely different matter. He would want his brother back surely, yet there was no grantee that he would be friendly to Harry; the opposite was more likely. He had pushed Thor away, taking his place. Hate and hostility were to be expected. He had to make it sound as if he meant no harm. Because he mean no harm. Thor had been willing to listen; hopefully Loki Odinson would be willing to do the same. As for the woman -

"Merlin?" the she repeated his expletive perplexedly. "What do you mean? What happened with you? How do you feel? Are you alright?"

The onslaught of concerned questions made Harry blink. "Well, everything considered, I'm okay." It might have been unwise of him to say that. He might have been better off if he tried to pretend to be Thor. Yet keeping up the pretence would be next to impossible and leading them along might only make them resent him more when they found out the truth, because there was no doubt in his mind that they would. He didn't know what he ought to do. He had never been in a situation like this one before, but he had been in danger before and he had lived through it. He had to keep his hopes up, and his wits about him.

"Considering what?" the woman pressed. "What happened?" She sounded so earnest, so concerned for him that Harry felt a lump of guilt expand at the pit of his stomach, it had been there before and he was being reminded of it. This was his fault. If he hadn't tried this he wouldn't have pulled Thor away from his life. He had to make it right. Had to go back somehow and send to man back into his body. If only he knew how to even begin. Telling these people what had befallen him was his only option. He had no time to lose, and waiting wouldn't make telling the truth any easier.

"Loki?" he said, making the utterance of the name a question.

The man only raised an eyebrow imperiously, holding his silence, yet the gesture was enough to confirm his identity and that was what Harry wanted.

"Your skill with magic is near unparalleled?" he ventured, formulating another question.

"Are you endeavouring to flatter me in hopes of persuading me to something?"

That didn't sound particularly encouraging. "Something like that," he admitted freely.

"I do not see why you would have a need to try and gain my liking, nor do I see why you would want it. I agreed to come along on this foolish venture, did I not? You have my cooperation; contend yourself."

No, not encouraging at all. He had to press on despite the animosity he sensed between the two brothers. "Are you aware of that each one of us has a counterpart in a parallel universe and that it is possible to reach through?"

"What are you talking about?" the woman interrupted. "Does this have anything to do with the convergence?"

Harry had no idea what the convergence was, but that also gave him the ability to answer her question. "No, I don't think so." He looked back up at Loki. "Are you familiar with the concept?"

"I have heard of it in passing," the man allowed, making Harry's body flood with relief. Perhaps getting back would be easier than he had anticipated. Loki was a thousand years old or so, so he must know more than any person he'd ever met before could ever dream of. If he knew of correlates there was knowledge to be had of them in this universe and he would know how to get it.

The man observed him quietly for a moment, a shrewd look in his eyes. Harry felt as if he was being seen through, as if Loki was reading his mind although there was no inkling of legilimency being used. Meanwhile the woman turned her head back and forth to look at them both in turn.

"You're not Thor," Loki stated quietly. "You're a counterpart connecting with this world and failing. That's why he collapsed."

"Yes," Harry said, relieved that he would have to be the one to say it, relieved that Loki had figured it out. "Can you help me get back? Get him back too?"

Loki's calm countenance cracked. A smile spread over his lips, growing broader till it showed too much teeth. It wasn't a friendly smile, it was tinged with malice. Harry felt the tiny hairs at the back of his neck standing on end as Loki's grin turned to a laugh. Bringer of the apocalypse, the old myths said. Merlin, it mustn't be so.

"Someone out there truly favours me," Loki said in a tone that could be sincere or sarcastic.

"Will you help me?"

"Not for free."

"I see."

"You will do everything I tell you, and I will help you in return," he offered.

Harry might have a bit of innocence left, but even he could tell that such an offer following a near manic laughter was a very bad sign. "And if I don't?" he asked, trying to make the question sound rhetorical, rather than defiant. He was at a disadvantage here; he didn't want to induce violence.

"You are of course welcome to take your chances."

He glanced at the woman. She was glaring openly at Loki. She had seemed concerned for him, or for Thor at least. "What do you think I should do?" he asked her.

"I won't pretend that I know what's going on," she said, looking at him again. "How can you not be Thor? If you aren't him, who are you?"

"Yes, that is a justified question. A human wizard I would suppose, young too considering the alignment, barely more than a child."

Harry fought the urge to protest. He would soon be seventeen and besides, with the burden that had been placed on his shoulders he couldn't be considered a child. He hadn't been a child since he saw Cedric die at the graveyard, and perhaps not before than either. Yet he held his tongue, knowing that a protest would only give the man assurance of his claim.

The woman seemed to notice his indignation and offered up a peace offering. "My name is Jane Foster. I am human; not of Asgard. I work as an astrophysicist." She was looking at him as if she was hoping that he would smile and tell her that it was all an ill-founded joke. Regrettably he could not do that.

"I'm Harry Potter," he said, "and as you guessed," he directed that statement to Loki, "I am a wizard. It was my intention to seek the knowledge of my correlate in this world by absorbing his memories. My reason for this is that there is a war on the horizon in my world and I needed any advantage I could gain. Something went wrong. I talked with Thor in a place where there was only us and darkness. We tried to understand what had happened and find a way out. We failed. I ended up here, and I cannot say what happened to him. I am really sorry for what happened." He sighed softly, twitching as he made to correct the placement of his glasses, missing the pressure of the frames against his nose, and his hand only found air. He changed the movement of his hand to stroke away a strand of long, blond hair. Being in Thor's body would take some getting used to, although he hopefully wouldn't have to stay long enough for that to happen.

"This was not my intention," he elaborated. "He was very anxious to return here." Harry looked around. Outside the vessel they were in, a desolate landscape stretched out. Sand and rock the same colour as the sky were the only things there was to see. While it was a welcome sight after the nothingness of the place he had met Thor in, it was hardly cheerful or comforting. "As I can see that this is not Asgard and judging by Thor and I being counterparts, my guess is that you are dealing with a bad situation. He mentioned a war."

Loki smiled wryly. "Ah, yes. A foolish plan from the start; doomed to fail now. This is a splendid mess and we are likely to die soon. Forget about my offer of help for a price. At least I will die knowing Thor is once again mortal and will die soon as well."

"I'm not useless," Harry boldly proclaimed, while at the same time wondering what in Merlin's name was wrong with Loki. Laine had described him as having a brilliant mind, as being a scholar and a warrior both. As the younger Prince he was likely to become an advisor to the throne, ruling in all but name alongside his brother, who the people saw him as being close to. He had many times used diplomacy, smooth talking and a sharp to solve bad situations. The man before him seemed unhinged, cynical and hateful. He seemed like the blood brother of Odin who would bring the end of days. The only thing going for him was that he'd not acted violently or threatened Harry. He seemed unstable, he seemed like he hated Thor passionately and he wasn't beyond extortion. That it was bad didn't begin to cover it.

"I've fought before if that's what we need, and stealth I have dealt with too," the wizard concluded.

Loki only seemed more darkly amused. "Games for children where they train you in those matters are not the same as real battle where you fight for survival against powerful foes."

Now Harry was fuming, he knew that his story wouldn't be known here, but he didn't appreciate the condescension. "Alright, you were right about my age, I have yet to turn seventeen-"

"Seventeen?" Jane echoed, horrified.

Harry went on regardless of her interruption. "Yet your presumption about my age does not give you the right to presume and judge other things about me. You and Thor may have lived privileged lives where you got to prepare for real danger through games, I have not had that luxury. I have had to fight for my life on numerous occasions. Despite my age I am still alive!"

"Pick up the hammer." Loki gestured to a weapon that was lying on the floor of the vessel. Giving it one look Harry could instantly tell that it wasn't just any hammer. It was special in some way. He hadn't read anything about this world where it was mentioned, yet the Norse legends he, Ron and Hermione had studied in passing did mention Thor and his hammer. He couldn't remember its name, he hadn't thought it important enough to remember the strange sounding word, but he knew that it in the legends had the power to call the storm.

"Why?" he asked warily, wondering at the sudden turn.

"If you can wield it, you might not be completely useless."

Harry bristled again. He knew he shouldn't go for the bait, but Loki somehow rubbed him the wrong way, much like Malfoy or Snape would. He felt an urge to prove them all wrong, to show that he wasn't useless, that he wasn't weak. If the hammer held as much power as he thought it did, using it would be an advantage, however, and it wasn't as if Thor was around to claim it.

All along he had stayed on the floor of the vessel, now he got to his feet, mindful of the cape. Moving was a bit strange. As he rose he ended up higher from the ground than he was used to. His body also felt easier to move, as if each movement took less effort. He understood that it had to do with Thor's Asgardian body which was different from his own human one.

Before he reached out to grab the handle of the hammer he stopped and looked at both Jane, who was still on the floor, and at Loki. Jane looked concerned as before and Loki anticipatory. "There is something more to this," he stated.

"Ah, so you do have at least an ounce of intelligence," Loki muttered, "I was beginning to wonder."

Jane was more forthright with information. "Only those who are worthy can use Mjolnir. To everyone else it's as if it was stuck to the ground, as if it weighed tons. They can't lift it."

"Like Excalibur?" he suggested, looking at the hammer in a new light.

"I suppose," she said with a weak smile and Harry got a sense of a memory, of seeing Jane sitting across from him on a sofa under a starry sky. He blinked at the stab of pain through his temple that had accompanied the remembrance and the image faded. It left a sensation though, a vague affection for her. In the wake he felt even guiltier. Thor meant something to her and yet she had not shown any anger toward him for usurping his body.

"Though I don't think you get to rule England if you manage to pick it up," Jane added.

"Good," he said, "I wouldn't want to." He hesitated. "Lifting it won't make me entitled to rule Asgard, will it?"

Loki rolled his eyes. "No."

"Good," Harry said again. Looking at the hammer he tried to believe in himself; tried to believe that he was worthy. He had pulled the sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat in the Chamber of Secrets. Dumbledore had speculated that he had been able to do so because he has shown courage. Perhaps he had what it would take to gain the loyalty of this weapon too.

Pushing away the apprehension that wanted to build, Harry grabbed the handle. The leather was buttery soft against his skin and the grooves seemed to fit perfectly to his hands. As the weapon had surely been wielded by Thor for years upon years, it wasn't surprising. Now he had to find out if the hammer would notice that there was a different person inside the body. He pulled and instantly his spirit dropped. He couldn't make it move. He thought that it might have twitched, but he must have imagined it. A second pull did not move it at all. It sat stubbornly still as if forged together with the ground.

"How disappointing," Loki muttered, not sounding as if he'd expected anything different.

"I thought," Jane whispered in turn, sounding choked. "I didn't actually think it was true, but it is. You're not Thor."

"No, I'm not," Harry said feeling defeated. Clearly he wasn't as good a man as his counterpart. He wasn't worthy. Maybe he was a child playing at being an adult, thinking that he had the right to do as he pleased because most of the world had demanded the impossible of him. Yet he was in a completely different world now, the same expectations weren't there. He couldn't hide behind them. And at the same time, he was responsible. He had to go back and complete what he had set out to do. Voldemort would still be there, would still need to be stopped. There was also whatever Thor had been dealing with in this desert together with Loki and Jane. He had an obligation to complete his counterpart's quest too, whatever it may be.

"So, will you tell me what it is you had planned? I am still willing to help as best I can. Or does that violate your order of doing whatever you say? Or are you planning on going out without a fight?"

Loki took a moment before he replied. "In truth, the world ending is not in my interest. Your aid in stopping it would be," pause, "appreciated, should you think yourself qualified to do something about it. Getting my fool of a brother back in time to save the day is not a possibility, so whether you are able or not, you will have to do."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"You'll get the respect you're due, wizard. You are here because you failed at magic, hardly a feat that inspires any faith in your abilities, and though you are meant to share Thor's soul or some such senselessness, you can not wield the weapon that proves his alleged goodness. Why should I put any faith in you?"

It was a valid line of inquiry and Harry winced. He hadn't been succeeding with much during this whole episode, that was true. "I'll prove myself," he vowed. "I'll do whatever it takes. Now, what is this about the world ending?"

Loki proceeded to tell Harry about the convergence, an event that happened every five thousand years. There was an alignment of the Nine Realms and portals between them manifested because of the closeness. A race of beings from before the universe was filled with light, which had been thought extinct since around the time of the last convergence: the dark elves, in whose home realm they were in now, had become active again when Jane discovered the Aether by stumbling through one of the portals. The convergence had opened, it had entered her, and sought shelter within her body. Jane was slowly dying from harbouring it, not capable of containing so much chaotic energy.

The leader of the dark elves wanted to use the primordial power source to pull the world back into darkness. Remembering the place he had met Thor in, the idea of darkness destroying everything filled Harry with a cold dread that bred a fierce sense of determination. That couldn't be allowed to happen.

Before they knew that the Dark Elves were back, Jane had been brought to Asgard in hopes of curing her. No healer had known how to remove the energy from her.

Sensing that the Aether had been moved, the elves had attacked the city, killing many in search of their goal. One of the victims had been Queen Frigga, which had been a powerful blow to the royal family.

Angry and bordering on desperate Thor had devised a plan, defying his father's wishes, committing treason by doing so and setting Loki, who had been in prison, free. The man hadn't wanted to say it, planning on keep that detail from Harry, but as Jane was there and would not have Harry deceived regarding Loki's nature, he had been told.

The plan had been to draw the dark elves away by taking Jane and the Aether away from Asgard. Because they could sense it, they would follow. They would allow their leader, Malekith, to draw the Aether out of Jane by having Loki pretend that he had betrayed Thor. Then Thor would have used Mjolnir to destroy the Aether. Obviously that plan would no longer be possible to implement.

"I am so sorry," Harry said for a second time, feeling completely useless. It was possible that his sense of self import, the conviction that there wasn't anything more important than ending Voldemort and the war wizarding Britain was being plunged into had cost another world of it's existence. Sorry wasn't going to cut it, yet it needed to be said.

"What of your so-called skills?" Loki taunted him. "Is there nothing in your repertoire that could aid us? Are you admitting defeat?"

"Pot-kettle," Harry muttered, and received a dark look. "I do not have my wand," he said miserably then, "I cannot cast magic without it. If I did have it, I don't know what I could possibly do to destroy the Aether."

"Pathetic. Do you feel the magic within you or not?"

"I don't know." Harry had never tried to feel his magic before. It was there. That's all he knew. No one had ever spoken to him about sensing it. He had imagined how he would feel if he lost it, but those ideas were more related to the limitations his life would take if he didn't have magic and even more with imagining being stuck with the Dursleys for twelve months of the year rather than two.

"A society built on magic and yet you don't even know what magic feels like. How you squander your abilities. It is pitiful."

Harry glared. He seemed to be doing that a lot. Loki wasn't a pleasant person to be around. He had to prove that he wasn't useless, wasn't weak as Snape has accused him of being. He tried to remember if there was any time he'd actually sensed his magic. One obvious answer came to mind.

When he had been chosen by his wand he had felt it. Warmth, power, rightness. If he could call on that sensation again, perhaps he would be able to access his magic. It was worth a try. It was as Thor had said to him as they searched for a way back: doing nothing wouldn't solve anything. He had to try. Closing his eyes he tried to find his magic, tried to use a sense that was there, but never had been used before. Standing there with his eyes closed as an unforgiving wind moved over the landscape, making his cape flutter and making him feeling silly. It felt as silly as trying occlumency ever had. Clearing his mind. Looking inward for an invisible power source… He couldn't let that stop him, couldn't let himself be distracted by Loki's derisive snort or Jane's increasingly laboured breathing from where she sat, covered by a blanket. He couldn't let himself think like the Dursleys, like a muggle. He was a wizard. He had magic. It was his. He filled his mind with the remembrance of how warmth had spread through him as he connected with his wand. He filled his mind with the memory in the same way as he would focus on a good memory to cast the Patronus Charm.

There was nothing. He couldn't sense anything. Just his own heart beat, which was a bit different from what he was used to, heavier pulses that were located to the right rather than the left, not that it mattered much. Hermione might have jumped with excitement at the observation that Asgardian physiology was different to human, but it wouldn't help him much.

If imagining the sensation of his wand wouldn't help him, perhaps he should try something else. He didn't have his wand; trying to reach his magic that way might have been stupid to begin with. He had done magic without his wand, he knew that. It hadn't been conscious, yet it had happened. It had happened before he ever knew that magic existed and he had done it since to, when Marge slandered his parents. Apparition too was done without a wand, not that he'd ever apparated outside of class, but he knew how to do it. Emotions and intent. That was what he had to use. Opening his eyes and staring at the stern of the vessel Harry imagined that he was there, and he turned. He stumbled over his own feet doing so and saw that it was a failure.

"Not that I would mind seeing my brother's likeness falling on his face, but what are you doing?" Loki asked.

Harry didn't reply. Frustration was building up his determination. He had to use magic. It must still be within him. It must. Destination. Determination. Deliberation. He wasn't here, he was behind Loki. He wanted it with all his being. It was truth, nothing less. He turned again. With a crack like of thunder he appeared in the other end of the ship. It had worked! He had apparated. Intense relief flooded him and he let out a small, jubilant laugh.

"So there is magic within you after all," Loki commented, not sounding quite as condescending as before. He didn't get a chance to say more. Their time was up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN 9th December 2015
> 
> The game is on. We're more firmly in the story now. Any questions or thoughts about the chapter? If so, let me know in a review and I'll get back to you. I hope you enjoyed reading this. The next chapter will be out next Wednesday. Have a good week!
> 
> [Last Edited 11th December 2015]


	4. Necessity is the Mother of all Invention

The victory gained with a successful Apparition was short-lived; Harry didn't have any time to revel in the fact that he had done magic. Down on the plains, a few paces away from their location, a gigantic ship became visible. The misplaced wizard watched it with stunned horror knowing from the information his companions had shared what it was. He'd not had much of a chance to take in any science fiction or real-life muggle science, but he still recognized a space ship when he saw one. An enormous structure, not shaped like anything he'd seen before, materialized out of thin air. It was as if it had been hidden under an invisibility cloak or by an overpowered Disillusionment Charm. It was possible he supposed, but the power that would be needed to have a spell of that kind work on something so large, was nearly inconceivable.

"That's not good," he said in a deadpan.

"No, it's not," Loki agreed. He'd gone from mocking to neutral at Harry's display of magic and now he sounded grim. "You need to release my hands. It would seem that getting us out of this mess will fall upon me. There is little I can do with my hands bound. I can't reach the locking mechanism myself."

Harry glanced at Jane. He could draw no support from her. He'd not asked why Loki was cuffed, beyond learning that he had been in prison. He hadn't dared to do so, sure that his conscience would stop him from doing what was clearly necessary if he knew the whole story. Jane had seemed hostile to Loki, but perhaps it was because of his personality, the same that Harry had experienced for himself, though it seemed likely that there was a far worse reason for the intense dislike. Now he couldn't tell what she thought, she seemed close to fainting.

"Can I trust you?" he asked Loki.

"You would be a fool if you did. Considering that you're Thor's counterpart it would not be surprising to discover nativity to be among your characteristics, but in this matter, you can only do as I say, or perish."

It was true.

Thor's brother wriggled his fingers, holding up his cuffed hands and Harry touched the metal that bound him. He found the release, and they fell away.

"We will go with the first part of the original plan, I think," said Loki and without giving any warning, Harry was shoved over the edge of the ship, tumbling down the hill side. He heard Jane calling out in protest.

The fall was bad, and he curled his body together to keep it safe. If he'd been in his own body he'd have been hurt badly and had a lot of bruises, of that he was sure. The rocks of this desert world were sharp and cut into him, but the armour he was wearing combined with the durability of Thor's Aesir body protected him.

Loki jumped out of the ship after him, bringing Jane along, pulling at her in a way that seemed far from gentle. They slid down the slope in a more controlled manner. "That you thought I ever cared about any of you," the dark-haired man said, and aimed a hit at his side. If it was the play at betrayal he had said was part of their plan, he was sure making it believable, because he wasn't holding back. Harry rolled over with the force, the air in his lungs being expelled from him with a whoosh. "That I cared about Frigga in the least. You will pay for that mistake now. I never cared. I was never one of you and I do not want to be. All I want is to see you and Odin dead."

Harry noticed then that his hand was missing. There hadn't been any pain (from that area) so he hadn't realized it. A perfect illusion was masking it, making it appears as if his appendage had been cut off. Pretend blood was flowing down the arm braces and the sight caused phantom pain to flow through his limb, making him grab at it. He felt stunned. His own face might be doing well at showing chock at Loki's actions. It was selling the plan. Hopefully. And hopefully it was no more than a ploy. The former prisoner's sneer looked far too real for Harry's comfort.

Loki aimed another kick at Harry, and this time at his face and the force was enough to make him roll further, tumbling around several times. Dust and grime entered his open mouth. He spluttered and grunted. He would have words with the other man about taking the pretend too far, should they make it out alive. His body might be durable, might be able to take a lot of force, but the kicks were coming close to exceeding his tolerance.

"Malekith!" Loki called, his voice harsh and rough. Harry glanced up at him. He seemed crazed, not at all like the shrewd man he'd spoken with just before. He wondered worriedly which version was a play. He could only hope that it was this insane persona. He couldn't tell which pretence was more difficult to pull off; an intelligent person pretending to be crazy or someone crazy managing to show restraint and rationality.

"I am Loki of Jotunheim and I bring you a gift. All I wish for in return is a seat from which to watch Asgard burn."

A remarkably tall and broad elf by the leader's side spoke softly, and it was in a different language than the one they had been speaking. Harry understood it as well as he would any other. It was the Allspeak Ron had told him about at work. It was an amazing ability all Asgardians had, allowing them to understand any civilized tongue and be understood in return. " _He's an enemy of Asgard; he was in their prison."_

"Your gift is accepted," the leader replied to Loki then, his voice deep and cold. Harry followed the path the man took, watching the man walking towards him. This was the being that wished to plunge the universe into darkness, destroying its current form forever. He was tall and had a pale face, as pointy and refined as any Malfoys', and with hair that was pale to match it. The pointed ears and eerily dark blue eyes showed that this was no wizard, however, but something else, something not human.

Malekith stood over him, watching imperiously as he gripped his stump of an arm and ground his teeth. Though he showed no sign of enjoying the sight, Harry thought he might very well be doing so. He'd been told that the elf had killed the Queen of Asgard, and had it not been for Thor he would have gotten to Jane too, then and there. Animosity abounded between these two men, and Harry was standing in for one of the parties.

Malekith's attention turned from him to Jane, as Loki pushed her roughly forwards, towards them. She stumbled and fell hard to the ground. Harry wanted to act, twitching as he repressed the craving to go through with it. It wasn't right that she be treated like that. He felt more anger on her behalf than his own. He could take pain, he had done so before and he was assured in the knowledge that an Asgardian would live through much. Though Jane was older than him, an adult, she shouldn't have to deal with a situation like this. She was an innocent. The tender feelings that had made themselves known as a single memory of Thor's invaded his mind rose to the surface again as he watched. He couldn't move yet, however, he must not. Not that he even knew what he could do. He had to hope that Loki had been able to come up with a new plan for when the Aether was released.

Malekith moved his hand, an upwards motion with palm at a ninety degree angle to his arm. As the gloved hand rose, Jane rose with it, floating up into the air. Harry watched anxiously. A wind that wasn't the same as the one moving across the desert stirred her hair and dress. It looked similar to how the light materials would behave under water, serene and billowing like sea grass. The illusion of stillness broke as a substance that looked like liquid, wine-red glass began to trickle from her body. It made her skin glow with an inner light and it turned her eyes into orbs of molten onyx. Some of the red energy fused through every pore she possessed, though most of it was expelled through her mouth, nose and eyes. It was a terrifying sight. Her mouth was open in a silent scream of agony.

What was even more freighting was the manic grin that stretched over the previously impassive face of the elf. The Aether formed into a rolling sphere suspended in the air and Jane slumped boneless to the ground. Over the roar of his own heartbeat and the strange whispering the Aether was emitting, he heard her breathing and resolutely pushed concern for her from his mind.

If he had been Thor, the thunder god, rather than Harry the wayward teenage wizard, this would have been the moment to strike with Mjolnir. Now Harry didn't know what do. He watched Loki, willing him to do something. The man only watched the event progress with a mix of what might be despair and awe. Help wouldn't come from him.

Harry watched Malekith, could see in his eyes the absolute hate that lived within him and he didn't feel just horror in return, he felt anger and a necessity, a will to destroy, to kill. He had been told what it took to use the unforgivable curses. You needed to want it. He had the will. The lack of wand didn't matter.

He opened his mouth and shouted the hateful words, the words that had previously destroyed so much and held the potential of replication: "Avada Kedavra!"

Something split inside him and from him and in the direction of the Aether, iridescent green light erupted. He watched it, filled with horrified apprehension. The energies mingled violently. The magic of the Killing Curse entered the red swirling mass of the Aether and seemed to do it's best to destroy it. Some of the red liquidy matter lost its glow, turning dark and dull as the green curse magic interacted with it. But the struggle turned. The Aether enfolded the curse, working inward and crushing it before exploding out. A large cloud of dust spread out over their heads. Even the horrible power of the Killing Curse had failed. Harry knew of no more powerful or destructive magic, knew of nothing else that might destroy the Aether. He had failed.

Harry grunted painfully as he was hit with a backlash of energy. Loki must have been caught by it too because Harry noticed that his hand was visible once more, the illusion gone. Yet the man had moved during the explosion, shielding Jane from the blast, something Harry found himself to be irrationally grateful for. He closed his eyes and grunted, a few more memories reaching him with piercing pain. The first one of a woman with honey-blonde hair and kind eyes who held him in a warm embrace. Then the same woman, limp in his arms, her eyes glassy with death. He felt what Thor had felt in both moments, an unending fondness and love for his mother in combination with the comfort she was providing and in the second; heart wrenching-grief and anger which followed her death. This was the Queen of Asgard, the mother of Thor and Loki.

When he saw Malekith appearing from the dust, as it settled, the anger Thor had felt became his own. Despite his anger, the same all-consuming anger and hate he'd felt at Bellatrix after Sirius' death, he could only watch as the Aether settled back into its liquid form and Malekith directed it, absorbing it in a reversed process to what had happened with Jane. The process was quick, and then Malekith opened his eyes, showing liquid black. He nodded at his companion and walked back to his ship, completely unconcerned about them, while the tall being charged at Harry.

He could have sworn violently, but he didn't have time for that. He didn't know how to brawl, so all he could do was get back up on his feet and dodge. Still unfamiliar with the body he was now in, it wasn't a dexterous move, but it gave him time to think again to try another spell. "Stupefy," he tried, preferring to stun rather than kill if he could. Nothing happened. It was as if he was shouting a meaningless word, unconnected to magic. Again he tried: "Stupefy!" Better, but not enough. He'd not put enough will behind it; only a week ray of red light escaped from his stretched out palm and it did nothing to slow down this behemoth. Yet it made Harry feel determined. He had managed to cast magic without his wand and that was incredible. He had managed to cast the Killing Curse. He could do it again. He would do it again. "Stupe-" the elf didn't allow him to finish the incantation. He was kicked, the impact resonating in his abdomen. Hi slid back, heels dug into the ground.

He had to concentrate on evading his opponent, foregoing the spell casting for several dragging moments as he gained an understanding of what power Thor's body held, how much force he needed to move a certain distance, how quickly he could do it. He took several more punches without delivering any of his own before he'd moved away far enough to try the stunner again.

"Stupefy!" he shouted. Nothing. He vented his frustration in a wordless, strangled scream. "You can do it," he told himself harshly. "You can do it!" He imagined the red light, he imagined his enemy being stopped. He willed it. "Stupefy!" The spell hurtled out from his outstretched hand, a broad beam of bright red light. It hit the elf in the chest as intended, and it had some effect on him, though not the desired one. It made him stumble slightly. But once he had shook his head, grunting, he only seemed angrier and charged with greater speed than before.

Harry once again evaded by no more than the breadth of a hair. As he turned to meet the next attack, he noticed that a group of seven more normal-looking dark elves were approaching Loki and Jane. His lapse in attention earned him another grazing hit as well as a painful kick.

Sending off another partially successful stunner, he was left alone long enough to escape and run towards his allies. He didn't reach them until the fighting had commenced and become intense. Loki was moving with stunning agility and speed, holding his own while protecting Jane, leading the group of attackers away from her. Small daggers were in his hands, flitting through the air with a silvery sheen and into enemies where they caused irreversible damage.

"Want me to take care of the eighth one as well?" Loki called out, as Harry dogged the enemy that had followed him, trying to send out another spell and failing. He felt ridiculously glad that he'd not given up on Quidditch to research the spell that had put him into this mess. The reflexes he had developed from the game were likely to save his life now, as were the spells he'd learnt to perfection preparing to lead the DA, if only he could make them work.

"Together?" he asked. He might need the help with the elf who had attacked him; the being was abnormally strong and fast even with his own superhuman senses to match him. But no matter how much he needed help he wasn't about to stand back and let Loki deal with eight enemies.

Loki managed to slit the throat of one of the elves, who fell to the ground gurgling. "Don't get in my way!" Loki told him sharply. "Perhaps try and keep the woman alive if you care about her wellbeing."

Harry jumped at the advice. Loki would be able to hold his own, Jane wouldn't. She was frail and human and had no magic of her own, and besides she looked ill, probably because of the Aether that had sapped of her energy for several days before at last being drawn from her system. However, he noted that her eyes looked more normal, a soft, brown colour now.

Their enemies seemed to realize it too, and she was as much on their to-kill list as he or Loki were. Harry was beginning to understand how using spells wandlessly worked and he set out one stream of magical energy after another; some more successful than others. For every working spell that he managed, he utterly failed with three and did a couple week ones. Unlike the magic he had tried on the large creature that he now knew barely looked like the other elves, the normal elves were more susceptible to his magic and as they were hit with proper stunners they fell. While he felt distaste at the action he didn't protest as Loki slit the throats of the elves he had downed, and then they could both concentrate on the large creature, moving the fight further away from Jane's position.

Their joint effort hardly worked better than Harry's solo attempts, and soon Loki was drawn away as more enemies charged at them, having come from the ship. There were twelve of them this time.

These soldiers were abandoned on the desolate world, in the company of their enemies; in the background the skip took off and only a moment later it disappeared completely from view as the invisibility mechanism was activated. They had failed doubly now. Malekith had gotten the Aether and he had escaped with it. He would now be able to destroy the universe at his leisure. It wasn't over yet though, and until the universe was completely consumed by darkness they would keep fighting.

Harry wasn't physically tired; though he felt like he should be and had to remind himself again that he wasn't in his own body. He was in pain from the kicks Loki had aimed at him as well as from the many punches the overpowered elf had landed, but all in all he might be able to go on for many hours more before needing the least bit of rest. It was exhilarating and it made him reckless. He tried to hit back foolishly and was punched badly for his efforts, his nose giving in under the pressure and snapping.

As if that wasn't enough, the hit sent him flying several yards and the impact when he hit the ground near enough pulled his arm from its socket. The pain was almost enough to blind him, but he got up again and started running. He smeared the blood that was running out of his nose and into his beard by wiping it away, spitting out some that had gotten into his mouth. Jane was left vulnerable and he couldn't allow it. He turned on the spot, apparating right to the elf's side and barrelling into him, transferring his attention away from the vulnerable human woman. They tumbled to the ground, rolling over each other. He clung on as his opponent got to his feet and then sidestepped away. Time for more magic. This time he didn't hold back. He had managed it wandlessly before, if he could fuel the same desire to end this, he could do it again. He cast the Killing Curse. While it left him, making a sound like a storm, the light was the terrifying shade he remembered coming from the tip of Voldemort's wand. When it impacted, the elf shrugged it off.

"What in Merlin's name is that thing?" he asked muttered to himself and he was too slow now, not managing to move out of the way. He got hit again and went flying through the air for a second time. He managed the landing better, twisting around and landing on his feet in a half-crouch. The hit had sent him farther away this time and Jane was once more the huge elf's goal. Harry was up and running before he knew it. He didn't only move his legs fast, but he pushed off with great force, propelling him forward at great speed. In his normal body speed was nearly the only physical attribute he possessed and he knew how to use it to his advantage now. But he was still far away. Too far away. He tried to apparate, but failed, not concentrating enough.

Loki had dispatched of seven of the eleven elves fighting him, and although the dark-haired man noticed Jane's predicament, he couldn't do anything about it without letting his guard down and risking injury. Before Loki would be forced to make an unfortunate decision, Harry sent off spells towards the creature; their energy moving faster than he could. The magic didn't have any larger impact than it'd had before. But as when Jane had been in danger previously, Harry got the attention of her would-be murderer and so the fight was on once more.

Harry resigned himself to try and use physical force as spells didn't seem to do anything. No stunners, no cutting charms, no explosions, nothing. He'd never had to use physical force before this fight; he'd only been on the receiving end the times Dudley and his gang managed to catch him. He prayed for a memory to make itself known and tell him what to do. No deliverance was given to him. He could only count on himself. Although he had no idea how effective his technique would be, he punched out. His hit was parried. He was hit in return and off he was flying again, smashing into a rock face which crumbled around him. As he struggled to get up, a huge boulder was sent his way. Magic not working on the elf didn't mean it wouldn't work on an inanimate object. "Bombarda!" he shouted. The rock exploded, becoming smaller stones, pebbles and dust, yet it rained down on him, cutting at his arms and covering his skin in a layer of murky dust.

Crawling out of the destruction, he wasn't given any time to catch his breath. The fighting went on. Hits were exchanged. What Harry delivered barely impacted the elf, while the punches and kicks he had to endure sent him flying like a rag doll over and over again. The situation wasn't going to hold. He couldn't fight physically, he wasn't able. He had to use magic, he had to make it work, had to come up with a spell that would save him.

Trying to conjure a flock of birds only yielded two small sparrows and their tiny claws and beaks had no effect on the crazed elf. The ropes he conjured to bind the elf were either weaker than they should have been, or maybe were correctly conjured ones that were simply not strong enough to hold a dark elf. Trying to Apparate away and he only moved a few feet instead to the top of the closest hill as intended. Harry groaned with frustration. There was no telling how much longer he would be able to hold out. Sooner or later the enemy would use real lethal force, and why he hadn't so far was anyone's guess.

Loki appeared by his side suddenly, hissing at him, "Try something that isn't physical."

"What?" he panted, but the man's form dissolved before it could give him any answer: an illusion.

He dodged to the side as his opponent caught up to him, tried to dish out a hit, missed, then parried the next punch aimed as his face, feeling the hit vibrate through his arm, and then he groaned and closed his eyes at the onslaught of another few memories.

He saw Loki, a much, much younger Loki, smiling at him and displaying an illusion of himself with pride. He felt the wonder and joy of the moment. He saw Jane, he felt relief at seeing her whole and healthy, then felt the light yet sharp sensation of smarting in his cheek as she slapped him, turning his head to the side. He saw skyscrapers and cars as he flew over a city.

The momentary distraction had allowed the creature to get the complete upper hand on him. He was on his back, his face being pounded mercilessly and he couldn't get up, couldn't move. Each hit came too close to the previous one for him to react. It hurt, by Merlin's singed and bristly beard, it hurt. He couldn't let it go on. He tried to move his arm to shield himself, but was jostled too badly and pushed too far down into the dirt. He tried to concentrate, tried to will his magic forth now that he truly needed it and it listened, understanding that he was in desperate danger. A blasting curse swept forth, pushing away the creature far enough for him to get back up on his feet.

Getting back to dodging and taking punches while mostly failing to deliver any of his own, Harry thought about the message Loki had wanted to give him. Not using a physical attack was a good point; physically the elf seemed impervious. What he could do that wasn't physical was a completely different thing. He didn't know legilimency, and he wasn't sure he'd want to enter that being's mind if he did know how. He felt too drained to will up the hatred needed to even try to use the Cruciatus Curse, he didn't think he could. The anger Thor felt for the dark elves was the same righteous anger as he himself was familiar with, and as Bellatrix Lestrange mockingly had told him, that wasn't enough; you had to want to cause pain, had to want to torture and have your victim experience agony. He had to think simpler.

He was punched to the ground again, dust getting into his eyes, blinding him momentarily. He could use that. "Lumos Maxima!" he shouted and light, the intensity of a sun radiated from his hand. The elf stumbled, shielding his eyes. Harry grabbed his legs picking the elf up inelegantly and slamming him into the ground which cracked under the impact. With the light ebbing out as he'd stopped concentrating on keeping it alive, he only managed to make two more slams before he lost the first advantage he'd had.

During that time Loki had managed to get rid of the last few elves assaulting him and he was now moving. He engaged with the creature before Harry could get properly overwhelmed again. It wasn't long until the wizard concluded that this beast was beyond Loki too. He was doing far better than Harry had though, dodging and parrying while working his knives. They created scratches that bled black blood but the many lacerations weren't slowing the elf down, only angering him further. Harry tried to help him as best he could, but they weren't fighting well together, and most things he tried only hindered Loki.

"Don't you know any more destructive magic?" Loki called at him.

"I've tried it all, it doesn't take!"

"Blind him again!"

Harry made sure that Loki was looking away before diving in so that the elf wouldn't be able to avoid seeing the light. During the distraction Loki had made a long, sharp blade appear from somewhere and he thrust it through the creature's abdomen and danced away out of reach.

Loki and Harry stood together, looking grimly as the elf growled and pulled the blade right out of his body, taking it in hand and swinging it, showing his intent to impale them in turn.

"Great, you gave him a weapon," Harry said dully.

"No, I did not." Like the replica of Loki who had given Harry the advice to think outside the box, the blade dissolved in a shimmer.

"I don't know how we stop this thing. I used the Killing Curse on him and he didn't react; nothing should survive that."

"I suspect it's already dead," Loki said wryly.

"Brilliant. Then how do we destroy it?"

The elf had reached them, and Loki cut at the Achilles tendon of his right foot, which made it stumble. "Distract it," he commanded.

Harry's eyes grew wide as Loki ran away. "How?" he cried.

"Use the environment!" was the helpful reply.

"Use the..?" Harry, floundered and found himself in a pile of rocks, because he'd not been fast enough when the elf attacked next. "This is getting repetitive," he grumbled, but the rocks did give him something to use from his surroundings. He threw them at the creature, each crumbling to gravel and falling uselessly to the ground around it. Magic – how could he use magic on the environment? Transfiguration was the obvious answer, but transfiguration had never been his best subject. He had managed to get  _Exceeded Expectations_  on his OWL, but it had taken more hard work than either Charms or Defence Against the Dark Arts. Transfiguration normally demanded fine spell work, intricate wand movements combined with short and simple incantations. That wasn't to his advantage now.

Giving his best shot at transfiguring one of the larger rocks into an animal, he only managed halfway. The creature didn't look much like a lion, keeping its stony structure, but it had four legs and sharp spikes for teeth and it was moving, attacking as directed. It bit into the confused elf's arm, and clung to it, tearing. The elf struggled with it, giving the wizard time to try another transfiguration, one that, if it worked, might incapacitate their enemy for longer than half a moment. He aimed at the ground by the elf, trying his hardest to change its properties, to make it liquid. It worked about as well as trying to convince Hagrid that dragons weren't cuddly.

Loki showed up by his side again, unexpectedly. One moment he'd not been there, the next he was.

"Where were you?" Harry demanded, having the time to argue as he'd managed send another stone animal at the elf.

"I was getting something that will win us this fight." He was breathing hard, or perhaps it was only the enhanced hearing of an Asgardian that gave Harry the impression. The man paused for a bit longer, watching as the stone creature was destroyed. "Is that the best you can do?"

Harry felt like punching him, the sneering bastard had no right to criticise him. He was doing everything he could while getting thrashed. "Can't  _you_  use magic?" Harry shot back.

"A bit," the man replied. Suddenly there were four of him, all of them moving forward and taking the place of Harry's stone creature. He was stabbing at the indomitable dark elf again, managing a bit better now that he could come at the enemy from several angles at the same time. Harry held back, remembering how ill it had worked when he got involved. The respite was welcome, even as it made him aware of how battered his body was. The beating he had taken would have killed him many times over had he been in his normal body. He followed the brawl in front of him, amazed at Loki's skill.

Suddenly the dark haired man was back at his side, the duplicates gone. "Run," he said, pulling him along. Harry forced his legs to cooperate and as they sprinted, he saw from the corner of his eye a vortex erupt around the elf, drawing him in, pulling him together, deforming him. He felt the pull and understood the wisdom of getting away from whatever it was. The force field disappeared and along with it the elf.

The battle was over.

Silence fell. Everything was still and quiet. There was only the wind over the plain.

"How much did you enjoy this battle?" Loki asked him and Harry turned to look at him, wondering what he even meant by that question.

"Enjoy?" he repeated incredulously.

Loki's lips curled up at the edges into something like a smirk. "Thor always enjoyed a good fight. I am trying to see how much alike you are."

"Enjoy wouldn't be my word of choice," he said. And then he didn't allow Loki to say more, because he remembered Jane and he had to see if she was alright. As he turned around, he saw her some paces away. She was standing up, her arms wrapped around herself, her cheeks stained by tears, dust settled in the tracks. He walked quickly towards her, filled with the feelings for her that weren't his own. When he was close enough to have to look down to properly see her face, he stopped himself. He wasn't Thor, he wasn't in love with this woman – Thor was? – and she didn't know him.

"Are you okay?" he asked awkwardly.

"I could ask the same, you look awful."

"Thanks." Blood stained his beard; there was an open wound by his left eyebrow too, his nose was crooked from the break. His cape was ripped in a few places. He suspected that under the armour there would be a litter of bruises.

"I have been better," she said then, in reply to the question, "but I was worse before the Aether was pulled from me, and during. So yes, I guess I'm okay. Though-" she hesitated and rubbed her hands over her arms.

"Are you cold?"

"It doesn't matter. I saw something when Malekith pulled that thing out of me."

Loki had joined them now. He seemed perturbed by Harry leaving him to go see to Jane, yet his eyes turned intense as he heard what she said. "What did you see?" he asked.

She seemed reluctant to tell him, but she must have realized that Thor wasn't there for her to rely on and while Loki had done some (many) unforgivable things, he might be the world's only hope, no matter how ironic it may seem.

"I saw what Malekith is planning to do. He will use the Aether to plunge the world into darkness by using the convergence. As portals are opened between the realms, the Aether can spread quicker. He'll go to earth to do it. I don't know why, but I saw the earth becoming dark and the sun…" she trailed off and shuddered.

"Midgard, yes, that would be the logical place to start the process," Loki said contemplatively. "If his plan is to have darkness spread as fast as possible that is where he would go."

"Why?" Harry asked, wishing that he knew more about this universe. He wasn't comfortable with being so ignorant. It was like arriving in the wizarding world all over again, except there, however, he had been encouraged to learn, brought to school to see how everything worked, and he had time to reach competence.

"It's in the name, the middle realm. It is the realm that has the best reach to all the other eight."

"How do we stop it?"

"Stop it?" Loki snorted, sounding darkly amused.

"Are you suggesting we shouldn't try?"

"As if you can do anything about it, you don't even know how to fight."

"Perhaps I don't, but I will try. I can't allow the world to be destroyed if I can do something about it."

"It's like speaking to Thor."

"Maybe that's a good thing."

"You can't get to Midgard on your own, nor to Asgard. I'm not going to either realm."

"Would you sentence the universe to destruction, would you stand by and watch everyone in it die? Would you accept going down with it?"

"I don't care about the universe or the people in it."

Harry watched him. "Can't you talk straight for a moment? You told me that the world ending wasn't in your interest. Perhaps you don't care about the world as such or the people in it, but are you willing to die? If the world ends you go with it."

"You would have me save the world?"

Harry groaned and lowered his head. More memories. He had placed Mjolnir on Loki's chest, keeping him down. The man had a hateful expression on his face. A construct that looked to be of glass infused with rushing rainbow light was under their feet. "You can't stop it!" Loki cried. It was the Bifrost, the bridge between realms, and it was open to Jotunheim. The energy unleashed would destroy the planet. He felt confused and angry. There was another memory. A man worthy of respect, with dark skin and all-seeing eyes. "There is one who knows of other ways between the world," the Gate Keeper said. Thor replied: "Loki." And a third memory. It was dark. He and Loki were on a cliff somewhere, surrounded by trees below and above. "Come home," he pleaded. "We thought you dead." Grief, relief, affection, confusion and anger mingling in a mix that was difficult to grasp. "Give up this poisonous dream and come home."

He grabbed Loki as Thor had done then, holding him by his shoulders in a grip that would not be released. Loki grappled at his arms, surprise flickering in his eyes for a second. He would be able to break free of Harry, though it would mean fighting to hurt. Harry thought that he wouldn't do that yet.

"I am beginning to understand that trusting you is a risky choice to make, but as you said before, I have little choice. I trust that you want to live. I trust that you can put away the resentment you feel when you see this face, because you know I am not your brother. I trust that as long as this threat remains you will do all in your power to see it gone, and I trust you will do a disappearing act once it's over or worse."

"Well, wizard, you would not be wrong."

"I am willing to trust in that and accept it."

His eyebrows rose. "You would let me go?"

"If it means saving the world, yes." He let go.

Loki scrambled back and straightened out his grab. "You're beginning to get his memories, are you not?"

"Some. Bring us back to London."

"And then what?"

"Then we stop Malekith or die trying."

"Fine, just one thing first." Fast as a viper Loki grabbed his nose and pulled. It settled back into place with a snap that hurt something fierce. "You're welcome."

**\- Of the Same Scrap and Barley –**

Thor reached out and touched the wizard, and instantly regretted the decision. Darkness turned to light. Black to white. He recognized the discharge from Mjolnir when he felt it, though he could not fathom how it had arrived in that desolate place, nor how it had been activated.

He was falling. As he hit the surface below he didn't feel it with his body, only with his mind and for that it was far more jarring than a usual fall would be. He had fallen from heights that would kill a human numerous times without coming to any harm.

He opened his eyes. He was not in the strange place he had been drawn to, nor on Svartalfheim or in any other place he'd ever been or heard of.

"Harry?" a choked female voice asked. "Harry, are you alright?"

And there was his answer. He'd been drawn through to the wrong place, to the wizard's world. He sat up slowly, his head spinning, the room wobbling before his eyes. He felt weak and a bit nauseous; as if he'd drunk a whole barrel of thousand year old liquor and fallen asleep in an alley only to have Sif awaken him most rudely. He'd been close to human before, as his father stripped him of everything he'd taken for granted. This was something like that. He placed his head between his knees and waited out the worst of the nausea. Frames of glasses, like the ones Darcy wore, cut into his nose as he leaned forward.

"Harry?" the voice asked again, concerned.

"Give me a moment," he murmured, wincing at the sound of his own voice. There was nothing wrong with Harry's voice as such, but hearing something so close by, the vibrations noticeable, made his head pound. Being mortal was overrated. He already missed his own body and its inherent strength.

The feeling of imbalance abated as he kept his eyes closed and breathed slowly, while leant forward. Soon he felt well enough to sit properly. Looking at the world through vision correcting lenses was distracting. He could see scratches on the glass and in his periphery view everything was a uniform blur, yet he saw the speaker and another individual standing to his right.

He turned and looked at them properly. A boy and a girl. Young, so young. He knew who they must be from Harry's account of how the situation had come to be. Hermione with a mess of brown curls around her face and Ron with red hair and freckles. Both showing worry in their expressions, worry he would have to legitimise. He regretted that he would need to tell them what had befallen to their friend.

"I am not Harry," he said bluntly. "Something went wrong with your spell. He and I were both drawn somewhere. We spoke, he informed me of the situation. We tried to get back to our rightful places. Something went wrong again and I was brought here."

"Merlin," the boy lamented. His eyes had grown wide, showing a lot of white. "What happened to him? What happened to Harry?"

"I'm sorry, I do not know."

"Who are you?" The girl had a stick of wood directed at him. Her hand was unwavering and her expression closed off. He knew she wouldn't hesitate to attack if he proved himself to be an enemy. When he didn't immediately answer, busy assessing the situation and allowing another dizzy spell to pass, she repeated her question, more harshly this time. "Who are you?"

He held up his hand placatingly. "I'm sorry for not responding, my Lady, but my arrival here has left me somewhat addled. I am Thor, son of Odin, and I mean you no harm. I only wish for your aid in delivering both Harry and I back where we belong."

"Odinson?" the boy said, gaping before shaking his head. "Of course Harry's counterpart would be the bloody future king. I don't even know why I'm surprised." He then turned an alarming shade of red. "Sorry, I didn't mean any offence." He fell into a bow that Thor would recognize anywhere. If he didn't know better he'd say that this boy was a trained soldier in the army of Asgard, but Harry had mentioned that Ron had already gone through with the exchange with his counterpart. It may very well be that he had the memories of a warrior.

"Ron, what are you doing?" the girl demanded, without ever moving her wand, it stayed directed at Thor.

"The guy in Harry's body is the son of the King! We can't-" at that he pulled at her arm, forcing her to lower it.

"I take no offence," Thor told them. "I understand your caution; your friend is missing and I am a stranger."

"No, no, we apologize, my Lord."

"Ron!"

"Think, Hermione! This is Harry's counterpart; they have mirror souls. Doesn't that make him trustworthy, honourable?"

"Well, okay. Maybe he can be trusted but-"

"No, this time you have to listen to me."

Hermione shut her mouth and stayed silent, although she didn't seem pleased by it.

"How can I get back?" Thor asked. "I have to go back; my world is in grave danger. If Harry was drawn into my body as I was to his; he'll be ill-equipped to deal with the situation and may be hurt."

"Oh, Harry," whispered Hermione, "only you."

Ron however answered him. "We don't know how to fix this. We thought we had perfected the spell. Nothing should have gone wrong; you should never have known that Harry had reached through to you."

"There has to be something you can do," he said; defeat was unacceptable. "Do the spell again."

"That won't work," the girl said remorsefully with a shake of her head. "It's not meant to make you come through. If we tried it and were successful now with you here, you might only get the memories Harry has made since coming through. That is; if he got through at all and didn't get stuck in the place you spoke to him in. You said that you spoke with him, didn't you?"

"Aye, I spoke in length with the son of James."

"Do you have his memories?"

The idea that he might gain Harry's memories hadn't struck Thor, and the answer was easy. "No, I do not." He rose to his feet. He was shorter than he was used to, his limbs skinny. His joints cracked uncomfortably and his vision swam. He felt vaguely glad that Harry was not completely without muscle build, yet he felt more vulnerable than he'd had in a long time. He wouldn't be able to fight in this body, not like he was used to. A few punches would wreck him and injure him badly enough to possibly kill him. It wasn't a comforting thought. If he ended up concluding that he'd be stuck in Harry's body for longer than a few days, he would have to start doing something about that. He would operate with the idea of getting back soon, he would keep hopes up. He had to get back to Jane, had to make sure that she was safe, had to stop Malekith and keep an eye on Loki.

"If you cannot put this to rights, there must be someone else who can."

"I don't know," Hermione said sounding frustrated and as if it wouldn't take much more for her to burst into tears. "We've not told anyone of our plans. The people who first went through with this spell are all dead."

"Yet, you are young, there must be elders you trust who could impart their wisdom and aid us with this predicament."

Harry's two friends shared a glance. "Dumbledore?" the girl asked. The word meant nothing to Thor, but it must have done so to Ron.

"Harry wouldn't like that."

"Harry's not here to protest, is he?"

"So we're going to admit that we've lost Harry?" She glared at him. "Mum will kill me," he lamented. "McGonagall will give us detention every day until we graduate. We'll lose all our hose points. Everyone will hate us."

"So you suggest that we keep it secret?" she burst out in a scream.

"Yes! No! I don't know!" he yelled back

"It was all fine while it was working, don't you get it Ron? Now we need help!" She breathed hard, shoulders heaving, yet she continued quieter. "Professor Dumbledore is our best chance. It's for Harry."

A beat later the redhead nodded. "For Harry."

"Then we shall speak with this Professor," Thor concluded.

"Is he even at Hogwarts?" the boy speculated. "He's been away half the time this term."

"He was at dinner yesterday," Hermione remarked. "He came in as we left."

"You got the password to his office?"

"Yes, I do, and you would too if you'd come to the prefects' meeting."

"I can't be bothered with that, I-"

"I don't want to hear it. I don't know what they were thinking making you a-"

Thor then felt his attention slip as his body made its needs known. It not being something that made him uncomfortable to utter, he interrupted Harry's friends, asking for directions to a room where he could relieve himself. Thankfully the girl wasn't any more embarrassed than him about it and told him to go right through a door to the right and after instructing him she went right back to berating her companion.

After dealing with that which was necessary, Thor caught his reflection in a mirror above the sink and he had to look twice. He didn't look like Harry, not like the Harry he'd spoken with that. The glasses could be explained away as not having been there before, since not a scrap of clothing had been, but the eyes were not as easy to excuse. He had thought blood red eyes with slits for pupils to be odd in a human face, but had thought little of it as he'd seen begins with that eye colour before and Harry was a wizard rather than a normal human. The red eyes were no more. The reflecting gaze meeting his own was bright green, as far removed from red as could be. That wasn't all that was different either. The rest was more subtle. His face was slightly narrower, his eyebrows thicker. There was also an unhealed scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. It was very conspicuous and if it had been there when he'd spoken to Harry he would not have been able to miss it. Understanding that there might be more to this, he went back out to Harry's friends.

"Has Harry always looked like this?"

Ron's eyebrows rose with surprise and Hermione frowned. "Yes," the witch replied. "What makes you think he hasn't?"

"He did not when I spoke to him."

"Blimey," the boy muttered.

"What did he look like?" the witch asked promptly.

"Red, serpentine eyes. No scar."

The two youths shared a look. "We really need to speak with Dumbledore."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN 16th December 2015
> 
> A rather action packed chapter if I do get to say so. And what about the end? Did you see it coming? I hope you enjoyed it. Next chapter will be up in a week as per usual.


	5. On Thin Ice

A storm was stirring up over the plains. A towering cloud of dust was on the horizon, blotting out what little sunlight there was and moving rapidly towards them. The trio of one Jotun masquerading as an Asgardian, one wizard locked in an Asgardian body and one human scientist would have had to move regardless of what decision they'd come to.

They walked up the hill, back to the ship they had arrived in, and Loki activated it to take them up into the air and away from the storm. Harry loosened his cape and offered it to Jane to bundle her up in, along with the blanket that she'd used before. She was shivering and what little extra warmth the torn, dirty fabric could provide was welcome.

"Thank you," she said as she bundled up in it, pulling it around her jacket and up over her ears.

"You're welcome," he replied, sitting down next to her, close but without touching. By the steering contraption Loki stood, hair blowing in the wind, eyes on the approaching horizon. He had the difficult task of bringing them back to Earth, and he had to do so without going through Asgard as both he and Harry risked imprisonment should the enter the realm of the gods, Loki for his status as escaped prisoner, and Harry because Thor had committed treason, and then as it was discovered, because he had usurped the body of the crown prince. They had agreed to not use the passage they had arrived by, with Loki reassuring that he would be able to bring them to Midgard, even as he'd added silently that they would need unfathomable luck for it to happen.

Harry allowed his gaze to wander further, looking out across the world they were flying over. It was truly a miserable place, devoid of life, forsaken and dead. He wondered if it had always been like that, if it had been so when the dark elves lived on it, or if it had been destroyed at the same time as most of their race.

Inevitably his eyes found Mjolnir. The hammer lay where he'd first seen it, discarded at the bottom of the ship, on the opposite side of where he was sitting. He had no idea what he'd done wrong while trying to lift it. He couldn't begin to guess what quality he lacked. He wanted to be a good man, a great man, a man willing to do everything for others. But perhaps wanting wasn't enough. He had to be it, and apparently he had yet to achieve that status. He would keep it in mind and try to be better, to be all that he could be.

"It's strange that you can't pick it up," Jane commented softly, having seen what he was looking at. Harry tore his eyes away from the weapon to face her. "If it weren't for the fact that you can't, I might have not believed that you're not him. You speak a bit differently, I suppose, and you were shooting all of those lights from I don't know where, animating stone and whatever else you did. Despite all of that, there's something about you that does make me think about Thor."

"Perhaps the face?" Harry joked weakly.

She answered with a bleak smile. "It might be part of it." She reached out and touched his hand, moving it from under the cape, but he wasn't ready for it and flinched minutely. The movement was too small for her to notice so she didn't take her hand away. He was glad for it. Her fingers were warm and soft against the top of his hand.

"You shouldn't feel bad about not being able to pick it up," Jane told him.

"Why not? We're supposed to be alike, me and Thor, share souls or something like that. Why can't I be as good as him? Why can't I be worthy?"

"Thor's not perfect. When I first met him he'd been sent to earth to learn a lesson. He couldn't lift the hammer."

"He couldn't?"

"No, it wouldn't budge for him any more than for anyone else. He had to find himself again, had to understand what it meant to be worthy."

"Oh."

"You can learn that too, I think. You're young still, and in a strange place. If you're with us for any length of time, you might be able to pick it up before you go home. Don't give up."

The corner of his mouth rose as warmth filled his chest. "Thank you." It was nice to have someone believe in him, even if he might not deserve it. It was also nice to hear someone believe that he would go home, that everything would turn out okay. "Thank you for more than that, for not hating me after what I've done."

"It's okay. I'm not happy about it and I would lie if I said I didn't hate this situation, but I don't feel myself hating you. When this is over, I'll do what I can to help you fix it."

"I would expect nothing less. You're not the type to sit idly by, are you?"

"Not if I can help it." She pulled her hand back inside the cocoon and looked down at her lap. "Do you think he's okay, wherever he is?" she asked quietly, and Harry didn't have to ask who _he_ was.

"Yes," he answered, because he did think so, and because thinking otherwise was not something he wanted to do. "If he's stuck where we met, he might be bored, but I have no reason to think that he wouldn't be okay, and if he went through to my world my friends will take care of him."

"What is your world like?"

"I don't really know your frame of reference so I wouldn't dare to start comparing without knowing a bit more first. You said that you were human, not Asgardian, and with name like yours I'll believe it. All I know about this world is based on a few observations on the Aesir."

"Oh." She seemed disappointed and Harry was reminded of Hermione. Jane shared some traits with his friend, their hair and eye colour were what he first had noticed, and now as he talked with her: curiosity. And then there was the profession she'd mentioned.

"You said you were a physicist of some sort?"

"An astrophysicist, yes." When he looked at her without understanding, she elaborated. "I deal with how physics works in space, though that is only the very basics of it. Before I knew there were other realms, I still believed in their existence, still believed that energy could be used to open bridges and allow matter to pass through."

"Then how do you feel about learning that there are parallel worlds too?"

"It's not as shocking as it could have been, not after having seen the aliens on TV and having seen Asgard with my own eyes. I don't think I've fully grasped it yet, though."

"Television? That's our first common reference. Which just… It means that where I come from and here aren't too far apart in time. Two wizards born the same year who try to crossover at the same time might not have counterparts who lived at the same time. When and where you end up, it's strange."

"Tied to relative age," Loki added in. He seemed to have settled on a course for the ship and was now free to engage in the conversation.

"Yes. You certainly seem to know a lot about my situation," Harry accused.

"As I said, I have heard of it."

"How?"

The man stayed stubbornly silent, looking away.

"Fine, be unhelpful," Harry muttered.

"You're sixteen years old?" Jane asked him as Loki made it clear that he would say no more. "Shouldn't you be in school, not than travelling to other universes?"

"I am in school," Harry told her, "just not what I'd call a normal school. It's a school for magic."

"A school for magic? That sounds amazing."

"It is, I love it, but it's not perfect. If everything was perfect I would never have ended up here."

"What's wrong?"

"People," he said bitterly. "It doesn't matter where people are from, they're all the same. Certain people will always seek power and won't care how they get it, and the masses will stand by and do nothing. It's no different among wizards and witches. The only thing that sets us apart from 'normal' people is that magic allows you to do some really horrible things." He didn't want to talk about it. Thinking about Voldemort made his mood darken, and as if thoughts of the dark wizard had summoned him, Harry felt a stab of pain somewhere inside, the same pain as the ache of his scar. Jane sensed his mood and didn't pry.

"We're from different versions of the same realm, right?"

"I believe so."

"Where and when are you from? Your name could be used in most of the western world so that doesn't help me much, and language is strange with Asgardians so English is no giveaway. Television has been around for a while and will be for years to come, I suspect, even if it tells me that you weren't born in the eighteen hundreds."

"When I left… home… it was the first of March nineteen-ninety-seven. And I was in Scotland."

"Depending on how alike our universes are, you'll have missed a bit then. Here it's November and the year is twenty-thirteen, and in a sense you were born the year before me, if I'm counting right. That's weird."

"Not any weirder than people being over a thousand years old," Harry commented as he took in the new information.

"You have a point there."

Their conversation was cut short. "Brace yourselves," the Trickster cautioned as he steered the ship towards a cliff face. Had Harry not had previous experience with magic and a vague memory of going through a similar place to reach the desert world they were in, he would have been more worried. Jane had no such reservations.

"There's no opening!" she yelled and indeed there didn't seem to be one. They were fast approaching solid, dark rock. It was unforgiving, towering high, high above them, casting a deep shadow. It looked like crystal: sharp, jagged, hard. At the speed they were going, the impact would without a doubt wreck their vessel, sending them hurtling down onto the flats far below.

"Loki," Harry said warningly. He could guess at what was happening, but he'd rather not risk it.

"Don't trust your eyes," Loki told them and increased the speed further.

"Like Platform Nine and Three-Quarters," the wizard convinced himself, trying to place a sliver of trust in the unstable man who had control of the ship. Even as he told himself not to worry, he pulled Jane close to protect her with his own body should something go wrong.

The mountain face came up and… they passed through as if it were only thick black smoke and not solid rock, though the fact that some small protruding decoration at the side of the ship was wrenched off told another story. Still, they were no worse for wear as they came through the hidden opening, but that was when their real problems began. The ship tipped forward, falling nose first straight down and increasing in velocity so that Harry and Jane were thrown towards the stern.

"Loki!" Harry cried again, the woman clinging to him in fright as he grasped the railing to stop their further descent.

The dark haired man grinned manically, hanging on to the rudder, and did not reply. The hurtled downwards still, wind rushing by them, the sound of the passing air rising to a roar that drowned out everything else. When Harry feared that Loki had indeed lost control over what was happening and that this would be where it all ended, they levelled out and the tunnel-like structure they were travelling through came to an end. The rushing air turned freezing, and torrents of snow assaulted them.

"Welcome to Jotunheim," Loki said sarcastically.

**\- Of the Same Scrap and Barley –**

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, good day to you."

After the question about Harry's appearance had been brought up, they had moved quickly. Thor had been marched through many corridors where he craned his head left and right over and over, so much so that he'd gotten a crick in his neck, trying to take in everything there was to see. Heavy, embroidered tapestries competed with large paintings in gilded frames on every wall. The subjects of the paintings were strange-looking humans that moved and gossiped as they went. They seemed to be alive, some called out greetings and others moved from frame to frame following them before getting distracted by something else. There were suits of armour stood by archways and some of them turned their metal helmets, following them with their non-existent eyes. The walls were of heavy grey stone, the flagstones on the floor of the same material. Through large gilded windows he saw a landscape that reminded him a bit of home: snow-capped mountains, winter-bare trees and a dark lake.

They had passed a couple of transparent grey beings, spirits that had him on edge, ready to fight them however he could. Ron had helpfully informed him that they were harmless and wished no one in the school any harm. He was inclined not to believe Ron as one of the ghosts that passed had silvery blood all over his front and carried a rapier by his side.

He hadn't been allowed to stop and look at anything for long but he understood why, so he'd kept in step with his guides and sacrificed his neck to try and take it all in. Their march had ended in by an alcove where an ugly statue was placed. The young witch had said some nonsensical word and the statue had moved, allowing them to walk up a sharply-turning staircase. They had ended up in a large circular room, filled with a lot of fragile looking and shiny objects, as well as an abundance of books, strange objects on small tables with spidery legs and portraits of elderly-looking people on the walls.

A man had taken a seat behind a desk as they entered and it didn't take long for Thor to conclude that the man was the wizard known as Professor Dumbledore. He was old and looked it, with a silver-white beard that was long enough to be tucked into his belt. Yet he held himself with great poise, displaying a silent power that the son of Odin could not deny. He understood why Harry's friends would turn to this man for advice. He was, however, slightly amused, or perhaps bemused would be the better word, at the man's choice of apparel. Robes seemed to be what these human magic users wore, but unlike the demure black the youths were wearing, the older man sported bright purple attire, accented in a frivolous pattern of silver and crimson.

"Sir," Hermione began after the man had wished them welcome.

"Have a seat," the professor told them kindly, yet in a tone Thor knew was a command. They followed the order and sat down in three chairs that moved by themselves to accommodate them. It was all very odd. Thor had never seen magic like this before; he knew that if the situation wasn't so dire he'd be very eager to explore this new world. He'd always been curious and excited to find new challenges.

"Tea?" the man asked.

"Sir," Hermione said, more urgently this time, a somewhat chiding timber making its way into her voice, and Dumbledore looked at her, seeing her distress.

"It's one of those times, is it? Very well."

He leaned his elbows on the table and steepled long fingers together. Thor saw that one hand was blackened; it looked as if it had been burnt in a fire, sooty and brittle. It looked bad, very bad. He'd never been interested in magic himself, having left that for Loki, but he knew that Dumbledore's had was the result of destructive forces at work.

"Speak, then, and I shall endeavour to assist you as best as I can."

Thor decided that he might as well speak, as not introducing himself felt like a breach of etiquette. "I am not Harry Potter," he said calmly. He could sense his companions' horror at his candour, yet he pressed on. "I am Thor Odinson of Asgard. I met with Harry in a place I have no name for. He explained to me that he had tried to reach through to me, as I am almost certainly his soul-correlate, simply to see my memories. He failed. As we tried to return to our proper places, I am afraid I miscalculated. Harry said that he felt a connection between us. I believed it might be used. When we connected physically I felt a charge of lightning that I am certain came from my hammer, Mjolnir. What next I remember is waking up in Harry's body, where Ron and Hermione shared with me a little of what they know, and I did the same. They do not know of any solution, and thus we are in need of assistance. I need to return as my home is in grave danger and Harry should be returned too."

"I see," Dumbledore said, sounding at once calm and weary. He leaned back in his chair, holding the blackened hand with the healthy one. He looked speculatively at Thor over the pair of spectacles that sat on his long, crooked nose; then his eyes turned to the side. The Asgardian followed his gaze to a perch behind him. He hadn't noticed it previously since there was so much else to see in the room, but now he observed a large, crimson bird with golden plumage that sat on a perch there. It met Thor's eyes with small, pearly black ones. There was intelligence in those eyes. Not human, yet as potent or even more so. He could feel it assessing him, and that must have been why the old wizard had turned to it. The bird let out a long melodious thrill that sent his spirit soaring, filling him with hope and energy. His back straightened without him consciously willing it, and the frown that had settled over his brow loosened.

"What magic is that?"

"Phoenix song," the professor replied. "A power of good in this world that resonates with those who are pure of heart. Thank you, Fawkes," The phoenix let out another low trill. "This is very good, and one thing off my mind. Welcome to Hogwarts, Mr. Odinson. I hope you'll enjoy your stay with us for as long as it lasts."

Thor nodded his thanks, understanding that he'd been assessed and had passed the test, and for now he would not be met with hostility despite his intrusion.

"Miss Granger, Mr. Weasley: if you would tell me what happened right from the very start, and do not spare any details, please."

The story was told, Hermione and Ron giving the Headmaster all the details that Harry had given Thor when they had spoken, confirming that his correlate hadn't left anything out. It made Thor think better of Harry then he had before. He'd been reluctant as the wizard had dragged him into this misfortune, but for each thing he learned he gained an understanding that spoke in favour of the young man. It gave him hope that Harry would be able step up and take Thor's place for as long as he was gone; that the wizard would do his best to save his world. If need be, Thor certainly would do his best to save this one.

Thor had been asked to give his own side of the story, which he did willingly and he included the observation he had made about Harry's outwards appearance when they met in the place in-between.

"I will need to look at the research you three have all done this year," Dumbledore said about two hours later. Tea had been served, along with small sandwiches, the warm beverage and sustaining comforting them as the sorry tale was laid bare.

"Of course, sir," Hermione said. "I'll give you everything I- we have."

"Thank you, Miss Granger."

"Do you have an idea of how long it will take to send me back?" Thor asked.

"I could give a guess. Normally my guesses are good, but as of yet I know too little of the magic that went into this, even though Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger's story was very informative. I am also a very busy man, Mr. Odinson. I am the head of this school; I am responsible for each and every student residing within these walls and I am responsible for the professors that teach here. I also lead the fight against Voldemort. Returning you and Harry both to your homes, will be something I prioritize, as the sooner it happens, the better it will be for all parties involved, but I dare not promise anything. Certainly it will not be done before the end of this school year, should we not be so very lucky as to stumble over the answer."

The assessment was reasonable and disheartening. "If there is anything I can do to assist in the struggle your people face or in the quest of returning Harry, I will be at your disposal."

"I don't doubt it and I thank you for your offer, but for now the best you can do is to let these two fine young people," he gestured with the damaged hand to Ron and Hermione, "help acclimate you to Hogwarts, so that you can take Harry's place. It must not be known that he is gone. I fear that Voldemort would be emboldened should he hear of Harry's disappearance. He would undoubtedly seek to use you. You are human now, and more vulnerable than you are accustomed to. I also fear how the public would react should the information become widely known. This is not the time for the world to know that a French theory of soul correlates that was discarded at the turn of the last century was on its way to discovering something with a huge field of potential."

Thor nodded his assent, "If you think that is the best course of action I will defer to your judgement."

Dumbledore nodded in turn. "Thank you. Now, I have something else to tell the three of you, something that will empathize how very important it is that Harry returns. Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, had Harry informed you of what we had been doing during our meetings over the past year?"

"He was allowed to tell us, was he not?" Hermione asked anxiously.

"He had my explicit permission to share what we did with you."

"He told us about looking at memories of You-Know-Who."

"And he told you of the conversation between young Tom Riddle and Professor Slughorn?"

"He did," Ron answered.

"Then you know what Horcruxes are and that Lord Voldemort has several."

The two youths twitched and the Asgardian frowned at their odd behaviour. "Yes, sir," they chorused.

Thor was not aware of what these Horcruxes were and said as much.

"When we kill," Dumbledore said, peering at him searchingly, knowingly, "our souls can take damage. By the use of dark magic, witches and wizards can use this damage to split the soul and remove a piece of it. By placing a piece of their soul in an object, they create a Horcrux. The Horcrux makes them effectively immortal. It is not like the longevity of your people. When their body is destroyed, the Horcrux acts as an anchor, holding the main part of the soul to the plane of the living. This is what Lord Voldemort did, and in his fear of death he did it several times. I suspect a number, which is what I wished to confirm with the memory I asked Harry to obtain, though I now understand why he did not put as much effort into it as I had asked," he gave both the Gryffindor prefects a chiding look.

"We're sorry," Hermione said contritely.

"I do not doubt it."

"How is Voldemort killed?" Thor asked, not willing to let Harry's friends stew in misery. It accomplished nothing. They were right to regret what they had done, but the result of their mistake was punishment enough. He also noted curiously that the two people by his side twitched again. He'd have to ask why, later.

"The Horcruxes must be destroyed, and once they are no more, Voldemort will be as mortal as any other man." Dumbledore let out a long sigh. "This is, in part, why we need Harry back. What you told me of Harry's appearance when you met him, Mr. Odinson, tells me that my worst suspicion is true."

Hermione gasped, suddenly, covering her mouth with her hands. "Oh, no, not Harry..! No..!"

"I see that you understand, Miss Granger."

"He couldn't be. He can't be. It-"

"If only it were so."

Thor understood then too. He hadn't met just Harry, he'd met Harry and a small piece of Lord Voldemort, melded together seamlessly. "How much has it influenced him?" he asked.

Ron too appeared to have understood. He was very pale and was gripping the arms of his chair tightly, knuckles turning as white as his cheeks.

Dumbledore shook his head. "It created a connection between them; it gave Harry an ability to speak with snakes, an ability he shares with Voldemort. The connection has brought with it much pain, but I have no reason to believe that the Horcrux has influenced Harry in any way. My guess is that it is very small, accidental as it is. Voldemort never intended to place a part of his soul in Harry the night he killed his parents. No, it was a mistake."

"But," Hermione whispered, "how will you get the Horcrux out of him? It can't be easy, or you would have done it already." Her eyes were getting shiny.

"This is why learning what Harry looked like in that place pains me so. Harry and Lord Voldemort are intimately connected, and it is through more than the Horcrux. By taking Harry's blood to resurrect himself, Lord Voldemort bound them tighter together. I am afraid that-" he didn't continue. The old headmaster rose from his chair and paced around the room.

"Sir, please," the witch begged, "what is it? What must happen?"

"It's only a theory, of course," the brightly robed wizard commented, "but I think the only way for the Horcrux in Harry to be destroyed is for Voldemort to kill him."

"No!" the brown haired teen jumped up. "No, that can't be the only way!"

Thor rose too. "I agree; there are always other options, needlessly killing young Harry on the supposition that there is no other solution is a desperate man's solution."

"And with that one statement you have described my situation. You must understand that-"

There was a knock on the door, and the professor stopped. "Ah, I see we must cut this meeting short."

– **Of the Same Scrap and Barley –**

Jotunheim was as desolate and miserable as Svartalfheim before it. Everything was just a different tint. The ice covered landscape was deep blue, grey and white where the desert of the previous realm had been the colours of a swamp. But the new surroundings were just as awful, or worse.

The cold was blatant. Jane had warmed up before, swept in Thor's cloak. Now she was shivering violently and all the warming charms and fire spells Harry had tried fizzled out uselessly in contact with the chilling wind. He felt the cold acutely himself. His arms were bare and while the snow that had settled on them had melted off in the beginning, it was now sticking and covering him up. Brushing it away was futile as more soon took its place. His long hair and beard were covered in the white stuff too.

Loki seemed completely unbothered by the weather, and when Harry had commented on it, Loki's face had turned dark, frighteningly so, and he had pressed out through clenched teeth that this was the Realm to which he was born. The cold wouldn't bother him. He had refused to elaborate.

When Jane's lips turned blue and her shivers began to die down, Harry got very worried for her. He brushed away the snow from his arms and wrapped them around her, rubbing at her own limbs to make friction and create warmth. He struggled to find a balance between speed to create heat and not being too rough since he could easily hurt her.

"She can't take much more of this!" he told Loki, shouting to be heard over the howling wind. "When will we be able to leave?"

"Soon!" Harry resolutely pretended that he didn't hear the second bit: "If all goes well."

He tucked the woman's head under his chin and mumbled reassurances that she was most likely deaf to. It didn't matter; they were more for himself at any rate. Never before had he experienced such bad weather. He'd played Quidditch in storms both warm and cold, but even the cold of the Scottish Highlands could not compare to the freezing temperatures of the Ice Realm.

Loki steered the ship down a fissure in the glacier, the walls of ice on either side giving them some shelter from the polar winds and torrents of snow. The respite from the storm was welcome; the darkness that reigned there, not as much.

"How is she?" the man asked, showing unexpected concern.

"She's bad."

"'m f-f-fine," she mumbled quietly, teeth clattering. And Harry let out a shaky sigh; he'd thought that she'd lost consciousness. It was good to know that that wasn't the case.

"How much further before we can move to a different realm?"

"As I said, not much farther. I've not been through here many times, yet should my memory serve me, the entrance to the passage should be some ways in the direction of this fissure. We'll be able to stay down here until we're but a stone's throw away."

The wizard shook his head. "Something tells me that when you people say a stone's throw you mean something different than what I'm used to."

"That may be so; your kind is pathetically weak."

Harry didn't respond to that .There was no use. He recognized bigotry when he heard it and knew how futile it was to discuss it. It wasn't as if Loki would change his view if Harry argued in favour of humans. It didn't work back home with purebloods discriminating against muggleborns, and it wouldn't work with a being even older and more set in his ways.

They journey continued in silence, Harry and Jane miserable in the cold, she far more so than he. The wizard fantasised about the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room. It would blaze high, orange and warm. He could curl up in an armchair with a conjured blanket strapped to a warming charm and he could ask Dobby for a steaming cuppa. He hoped Jane was doing as well as she was claiming. That she her shivering was subsiding wasn't a good sign for all he knew of hypothermia.

Too soon for anyone's comfort Loki steered the ship up and out of the broad canyon in the ice. During their short absence the storm hadn't abated any; it roared as ferociously as ever before, threatening to overturn the ship as it rose over the edge of the glacial crevasse. They moved towards a set of jagged mountain spikes, too sharp and steep to allow any snow to linger upon the rocky surface.

"The pathway is by the base of those mountains!"

"And where on earth will it take us?" They were shouting again.

"Somewhere in the uninhabited north!"

They approached the mountains swiftly and Harry couldn't wait for it to be over with; even if they ended up close to the North Pole on earth, the weather couldn't be any worse there than it was on Jotunheim. but, he knew better than to hope for the best, and his pessimism proved itself to be prophetic. Ahead of them a herd of large, spiked creatures were making their way through the meter-thick snow, lumbering by the foot of the nearest mountain. It appeared as if they were heading into a cave. Loki slowed the ship down, allowing its engines to hold them in place.

"What's wrong?" Harry called in question.

"We have to go through there!"

"So?"

The escaped prisoner glared at him. "I have faced such creatures before, and they are ferocious enemies! We will never make it through!"

"We have to!" Jane was limp in his arms, and he was certain that she had lost consciousness now. He felt small puffs of air against his throat still, so he knew that she wasn't dead, but it couldn't be long before the cold claimed her. Desperately he tried for a warming charm again and felt utter helplessness settle over him as it did nothing.

"We cannot fight them and win!"

"Then we don't." He didn't shout the words. He removed his arms around Jane and placed her on the bottom of the ship gently, the sides of it did keep some of the wind away and if he was to act, he had to let go of her.

"What?" Loki said with the same volume, which was all that was needed for Harry had moved to the rear.

"There must be a way to trick them."

Twin snow-covered eyebrows rose on the Trickster's pale forehead. "I see. Yes, I think that should be possible."

"You've made yourself invisible before; can you extend it to the ship and all three of us?"

"Yes."

"Then we try to sneak by them. This weather should help."

"It is risky. I know little about those beasts; they could have good hearing and a strong sense of smell. They have evolved for life in this realm, so the weather might not help at all."

"Do you have a better idea?"

He didn't, so the plan was initiated. Harry stood, ready to move should it be necessary, leaving Jane on the floor where he had placed her. Loki put his spell to work and the ship shimmered out of existence, along with their own bodies. It was odd, feeling the deck under his feet yet seeing the ground far below, and it wasn't made better when they started moving, but Harry had experienced a similar thing before when the Order moved him to Grimmauld Place for the first time. They moved slowly, inching closer to the creatures, yet keeping fairly high above them. That was a strategy they could only use part of the way. The entrance to the pathway was low and as they moved close enough to see it properly, the next obstacle became evident. Fitting through over the heads of the beasts was impossible. They slowed to a stop and Harry wondered how they would discuss what to do next, since speaking so close to the creatures would draw attention. The huge monsters (although they were animals, monsters seemed an appropriate term: for one, they would fit right into The Monster Book of Monsters and for two, their spikes, hard, leathery skin, bulging backs and thick tails placed them well within the 'monster' category of any layman) were moving slowly, ambling inside the cave.

The issue of communication was solved as Loki directed the ship upwards and away. As soon as he deemed it a safe distance Harry spoke in an as loud a whisper as he dared. "I hadn't counted on that."

"I thought not."

"I came up with the first part of the plan; do you have anything to contribute?" Harry had thought that plans that required stealth, that required methods other than brawling would be Loki's strong suit, but so far he'd been disappointed.

"I think bait will suffice."

"What?"

For a second time, Harry was thrown overboard.

– **Of the Same Scrap and Barley –**

Thor, Ron and Hermione were back in the room Thor had woken up in. Dumbledore had told them no more, dismissing them from his office when a man completely dressed in black had come in. The man had sneered, seeing them, glaring especially harshly at Thor. He'd been informed on the way back to the room that the man was Professor Snape and that he had a grudge against Harry. Thor could well believe it, such animosity as he'd seen in that man would have to be deep set.

That they had been dismissed had left a sour taste in his mouth. It was a rare experience for him, something only his father ever put him through and only in those times that they had been at odds. It was something which Thor never found pleasant. The urgency he had about returning also made the event less than desirable. Ron and Hermione shared his distaste, and on the way back they discussed what it might have been Dumbledore hadn't told them as well as why Snape had come in. Hermione had said that he looked tired. Ron had shot back that he'd not seen any difference; Snape was always ugly with dark circles under his eyes. She'd pressed on, saying that he might have come to report on You-Know-Who (though Thor did not know who) and that because of Harry's displacement the Dark Lord might have done something. Ron had grumbled something and nodded. Thor was grateful that they had agreed; the argument he'd witnessed soon after his arrival had told him that the two could get into spectacular rows or even just indulge in banter of a kind that no one wanted to be an audience too for long.

Yet they had proven why Harry had chosen them as his companions by getting over it and taking care the matter at hand: an education in acting like the boy whose skin he was wearing.

"First off, you have to use magic," Ron said.

"Magic," he repeated. It was impossible for him to say the word without derision. He had not hated it when he was a boy, maybe he had never truly hated it, but distaste and a sense of unworthiness attached themselves to the concept. Loki's tricks had never been regarded well in Asgard. It was dishonourable to use such measures when honourable battle was to be had. In recent years his brother had used his talents for ill, rather than the relatively harmless tricks of old. That he would fall into a world where everything was dependant on magic was ill-fitting. He had to rethink it if he were to survive with any dignity retained. His mother (thinking about her left a sense of loss, and incredulity) had been a magic user, his father was one too. He'd never disrespected them for that, nor had any other citizen of Asgard. Why Loki would be so scorned for something he excelled at was unclear.

"Yes, magic," the boy told him sternly. For each moment that passed the awe he'd displayed when hearing Thor's name was diminishing. "We use it, Harry uses it. If you're to pretend that you're him, you'll have to do it too."

"Fine," he reluctantly agreed. "What do I do?"

"Let's see if Harry's wand will work for you," Hermione said. The girl was sitting primly at the edge of a chair, watching him expectantly. "It should be in your pocket," she nudged when he stood there like a fool.

"Of course." He located the rod of wood, holding it awkwardly. That this thin, fragile thing could be an efficient weapon or tool seemed ludicrous, but he'd seen the Headmaster brandish his wand to control the furniture in his office, so he knew it to be so.

"Do you feel anything?" Ron asked.

"No." He wasn't feeling anything. It was a stick like any other in his hand, polished and smooth from a lot of gripping, yet unremarkable.

"Let's see you try out a spell," the witch said calculatingly. "Repeat after me: Wingardium Leviosa."

"Really?" the boy groaned.

"It's a good first spell to try."

"Why not lumos, it's easier."

She pursed her lips. "Fine."

"Alright, mate, you move the tip of the wand in a loop and say the word."

Thor did nothing.

"Oh for Christ's sake," Hermione grumbled and got up. "Thor, repeat after me. Lumus."

"Lumos."

"No, it's more like loo-mos."

Ron groaned theatrically.

"Loo-mos," Thor repeated, fighting to keep a straight face.

"Good. Now watch how I move my wand." He followed the path it made in the air and copied it clumsily, getting a frown for his effort. "You can do better," he was told and was drilled through it until the young woman was satisfied that he had it down pat. "Say the spell and do the movement together now," he was instructed.

If it weren't for her no-nonsense attitude to the teaching he'd think that it was all a grand trick to make him look the fool. Loki would enjoy something like it he knew, or his brother would have before everything between them turned sour. "Lumos." While he did the spell exactly as described, nothing magical happened.

"Try again," he was encouraged.

Doing so accomplished nothing, nor did his flailing and saying the word do anything the ten subsequent tries. "I might not have magic," he concluded, having watched as their faces fell.

"Perhaps you only need to try more. None of us could do the spell at first either."

"Yeah, but only Neville took more than ten tries to fix a wand lighting charm."

"That's not helpful, Ron."

"Oh, sorry."

She sighed. "I thought magic was a property of the body. It's hereditary so it should be. But if it's connected to the soul... Harry's gone now. And we know that he has a part of Voldemort with him; that explains why he can speak parseltongue. It's a magical trait, and if it's attached to the soul, perhaps more magic is."

"This will piss off a lot of people," Ron commented happily, "I'd relish telling Malfoy that it isn't his pure blood that gave him magic." He made a face. "Though that would meant that his soul is magical and- no, I don't want to get into this discussion."

The witch nodded stiffly. "Maybe not relevant to our current problems, no. If you don't have magic, Thor, pretending to be Harry will be difficult."

"Aye," he nodded.

She lit up. "There's one possibility left: it might simply be that the wand isn't compatible. While most witches and wizards are able to use a wand not their own, it never works as well as one that is bonded to them. With you never having used might before that might be a hinderance too high to overcome. If we got you a wand of your own, then perhaps it would work."

"It is a fine thought, Lady Hermione."

She blushed. "Hermione's fine."

"As you wish," he nodded.

"We'll have to tell Dumbledore to let you go to Diagon- oh, no, I forgot!" Her face fell and she looked horrified with herself. "You-Know-Who's people took Ollivander, his shop has been closed all year. It was left in ruins."

Thor sighed. "Is there any other way to get a wand?"

Ron shook his head. "I don't know of any other wandmaker in England. Abroad there are some of course, but getting to them wouldn't be easy. The headmaster might be able to devise something if we ask, but I wouldn't get my hopes up."

"Then we must devise another solution that will allow people to think I'm Harry."

– **Of the Same Scrap and Barley –**

Harry screamed as he fell. The distraction the blasted God of Lies had wished for was delivered. As he fell he became visible and all three dozens of the beasts turned to watch him flail.

"Arresto Momentum!" he tried, but slowing down was a pipe dream. Gravity had a hold of him and forcing it to let go was out of the question, and he sped up. With determination pulled out from some hidden reserves, he resolved to use the fall as an attack. The speed and his durable body might work as a projectile. It would be messy, it would hurt, but it was the best he could do.

He fell like a meteor, crashing into one of the creatures, his fisted hand paving the way through the body of the one he'd fallen on. It roared in pain as it died and panic spread through the herd. He came up, spluttering, spitting out the innards of the creature and cursing that this had happened. On the positive side, the flesh of the creature had warmed him up.

The panic of the herd lasted only a moment, turning to violent rage. "Loki, you will pay for this!" he shouted towards the sky, certain that he could hear mocking laughter from the invisible trickster over the howl of the wind. He jumped and swayed, trying his hardest to stay on his feet. He couldn't fight these beasts with his bare hands, their hides were too tough. They were not humanoid, but in the small red eyes he saw uncanny intelligence and anger which told him not to underestimate them. Yet he luckily discovered that they were possible to trick.

They had no regard for each other in their anger and seemed to have little comprehension of their size. When he made them charge at him and jumped out of the way, they collided with each other, and got hurt and in turn angry at the individual responsible. They began to fight amongst each other and Harry seized the advantage. He jumped up on the back of one, moving on to the next as to not be thrown off. Making it to the edge of the group, he sent a stinging hex at the closest one. Grinning victoriously when the spell worked, he began to lead them away, drawing them from the opening where the pathway to earth was hidden. That he didn't appreciate Loki's plan or his execution of it didn't mean that he wouldn't follow through with it.

"That's right," he yelled, "follow me, you dumb beasts!" Insulting them didn't have any effect, or if it did, it was indistinguishable from the already present rage that perpetuated the group. He danced out of the way, running in the snow, farther and farther away, slipping and sliding.

"Now, what?" he asked himself. Distraction and bait, yes, it was working. Loki and Jane would be able to get through. That left him. He let out a strangled shout when he was hit by a large, clawed front paw and was sent into a deep drift of snow. Diving up he struggled to come up with a plan that would let him get inside the cave.

"Trusting him is the stupidest thing I've done in-" the stopped there. He'd done a lot of stupid things lately. That's what had brought him into this mess to begin with. The beasts were uninterested in giving him a moment for self contemplation. They moved towards him like a frozen tidal wave of angry intent. Sending more stinging hexes their way, some hitting, some not, he broke them up and created disarray. Moving through them, risking being trampled into pulp, he managed to get them fighting amongst each other again. Once they were sufficiently occupied he sneaked off and took the long way around to the entrance. Breathing a sigh of relief that it had worked, before he worried about the next step.

"Loki!" he called in a hiss and yelped as he was pulled up by his arm. He landed with a thud on the floor of the invisible ship and was absorbed by the illusion.

"Thought you'd been left behind?" Loki's smirking voice asked from the emptiness next to him.

"The thought had occurred to me. After you so kindly threw me out I thought that abandoning me could be the next step."

"The distraction worked."

"No thanks to you."

The ship started moving and Harry let his ire for the Asgardian go for the time being. They would have more words later. He felt his way to Jane and picked up her limp body. For all that he had gotten covered in blood and flesh, the better part of it had been left in the snow as he was flung about, and he thought that she'd rather he try to warm her up than worry about getting her dirty. She was icy cold, and he vowed to try another warming charm as soon as they were though the next pathway. He knew better than to try now; if it hadn't worked in the shelter from the wind that had been the glacial crevasse it wasn't going to work now and it must only be a moment longer until they arrived on earth.

They sped up and soon Harry could sense that they were no longer on Jotunheim. The vibe changed. It was an intangible thing, yet it was there. It smelled differently, more like dirt than ice. The transit wasn't nearly as jarring as the one between the home of the Dark Elves and the Frost Giants had been. It was a small mercy.

They arrived out of nowhere, in a forest of tall, narrow fir trees. Patches of snow were on the ground, but mostly the ground was bare, showing brown needles and green moss. The sun was shining from a clear blue sky. While the celestial orb stood low on the horizon, casting a pale orange sheen and creating long shadows, it also gave a little bit of warmth. Harry drew in a breath of fresh forest air and jumped into action.

"We have to make a fire," he said.

"She might not make it."

"Don't say that."

"If you don't want to face reality, then by all means don't let me wake you from your dream."

Loki let go of the illusion keeping them invisible and Harry could see how truly bad Jane looked. She was deathly pale, her complexion ashen and her lips a pale purple. He unwrapped his cape and the blanket, applying a warming charm directly to her dress and her jacket, relieved beyond words when they both took. A third one, though he felt that it was weaker, was placed on his cape and he swept it around her again.

"Are you just gonna watch?" he snapped at Loki.

"I don't care if she lives or dies," he said flippantly.

"Liar," the wizard accused.

"That hits home. God of Lies they call me, if you'll remember."

"Stop it for just a second; I've had it with you for today. I saw you sheltering her as that red stuff exploded, and you didn't fight with me about hurrying so that we could get her safe. Some part of you does care. Make yourself useful now."

"With that tone, I'm not inclined to assist."

He growled. "Gather firewood!" he shouted.

With an eye roll, Loki exited the ship and presumably went about doing as Harry had requested.

While Loki was gone, Harry rubbed at Jane's arms again, creating friction and warmth. He'd never learned how to help with hypothermia, but getting them warm again had to be the key, it just had to. She mustn't die. He was responsible for her in Thor's stead. She didn't deserve to die, he didn't want her to. The remembered feelings were making themselves known. Thinking of her without breath in her lungs was like imagining the same happening to Ron or Hermione: painful and hard to accept. "Please be well," he whispered at her prone form. "Please."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN 23rd December 2015
> 
> That was the longest chapter so far, I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> What is your take on Loki? How icy cold is he? What is he playing at? What does he think of Harry? Will Jane be okay? Can Thor do magic? What is Snape there to tell Dumbledore? A lot of questions. Do you have any ideas about the answers?
> 
> I will be back with one more chapter this year. Don't miss it =)
> 
> For now, Merry Christmas! Have a great week!


End file.
